Pablo Hiriart
What is happening in Spain these days is exemplary for the world and a breath of fresh air for those in Mexico who have given up on democracy and justice. As long as there is a free press, there is hope. The prime minister apologized after the Civil Guard handed the Supreme Court a 490-page report documenting the organized crime network in his cabinet and his party, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
What is now being uncovered in Spain is the work of a press that did not bow to attacks from the ruling party, which launched a barrage of officials and media outlets against it to destroy reputations and discredit what is now being admitted to be true. It is also due to the courage of judges who did not renounce their role as counterweights to the power of leaders, despite being the target of a campaign that portrayed them as enemies of a government that came to power to “moralize public life and fight corruption.”
The collapse of Pedro Sánchez and his group comes at a very high cost, which is the breakdown of a left-wing alternative that did so much good for Spain during the transition to democracy and in the first decades of a pluralistic Congress. But if the inevitable happens and Sánchez falls, Spain will teach us a lesson in how to combat the global cynicism that feeds the discrediting of politics and disenchantment with democracy.
Pedro Sánchez apologized eight times in a single appearance before the media, after having defended for seven years the honor of officials who will now have to respond to court summonses for collecting illegal commissions –bribes – for the awarding of contracts and public works to companies colluding in the ruling party’s corruption network.
This is just the beginning of a long process in which cases will be presented against the president’s team, which operated as a “criminal organization” and which, for now, include the (former) secretary of organization of the ruling party, Santos Cerdán, the (former) minister of transportation, José Luis Ábalos, and his advisor Koldo García. The commission payments ranged from contracts for roads, railways, and bridges to the purchase of medical supplies and masks from China during the pandemic, which turned out to be inadequate and were purchased at inflated prices.
This is big news that should be heard by Mexican businesspeople who do shady deals with the “guardians of public morality,” thinking that their accounts will remain protected forever. With the official uncovering of the illegal commissions –bribes – that socialist government officials received from private companies in exchange for awarding contracts, we will see the executives of large companies paraded through the courts to face justice and accept the corresponding punishment.
They will not only be exposed in Spain, but across almost the entire continent, because the contracts obtained through kickbacks were for projects financed with money provided by the European Union, and these Spanish companies won bids from other European companies through bribery. All these years in which a sector of the Spanish press—El Mundo, El Español, El Confidencial, The Objective—has been publishing, in a documented and courageous manner, the details of corruption in the highest echelons of government, it has had to endure the aggressive disdain of the ruling party, which accused it of lying, of being a battering ram for the right, of being part of a permanent conspiracy.
There was no such conspiracy. There was corruption. The press told the truth. The political group now in the dock presented itself for seven years as the victim of the judges, the right, and the far right. The political shock came now, with the release of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) report by the Civil Guard, and the president stating that he regretted trusting those figures who had been linked to him for many years before his election.
The report, submitted to the Supreme Court, states that these individuals rigged internal elections in the PSOE so that Pedro Sánchez could take over the party leadership and oust Eduardo Madina, a candidate close to Felipe González. The president says he is disappointed in them—Cerdán and Ábalos—in a disavowal that few believe, as they were his traveling companions in the modest Peugeot in which the three of them toured the country campaigning with the promise of regenerating public life and ending corruption.
“I’m sorry,” the prime minister told the media gathered at the PSOE headquarters. He shifted the blame to the party and once again cast himself as the victim. Now, he is the victim of his lifelong allies. It will be difficult for him to save his government from responsibility for the confirmed crimes and those that remain to be proven, given that the kickbacks were not taken from contracts awarded for party purchases and works, but from the government itself.
There is still a long way to go. With each passing day without new elections, the president will increase the damage his group has caused to a historic party. We must pay attention to what is happening here in Spain, because a battle is being fought for the restoration of the prestige of democracy, for the sanctity of the separation of powers, and the vital importance of a free press.
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