The Mediator case, until a few days ago a scandal limited to the Canary Islands, broke out yesterday in the Congress of Deputies, where all the parliamentary groups asked the socialist for explanations, to which one of the main parties involved belonged, the former deputy for the Canary Islands Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo , a facilitator who supposedly collected bribes – in money or in kind – in exchange for his services.
The proximity of the regional and local electoral campaign makes this case a serious threat for the Socialists, who are striving to control the damage after learning that other members of the parliamentary group had participated in some of the lunches and dinners that Fuentes Curbelo called, apparently, with money from businessmen whom he supposedly favored.
Pedro Sánchez himself underlined, in an interview granted on Monday, the rapid action of the party: the deputy was forced to leave his seat and was removed from the party.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the socialist parliamentary group, Patxi López, has launched an investigation to see how far the scandal can go. His conclusion, expressed yesterday at a press conference, is that “there is no other deputy who has slipped down the slope of corruption. We are not aware of any other activity colluding with dishonest behavior."
The truth is that the images that have come out of the parties organized with the business cronies –with prostitutes and drugs involved– evoke the worst episodes of the Socialist Party, when the director of the Civil Guard, Luis Roldán, camped at his wide with public money in the 1990s.
The PP has seen in the case an opportunity to be able to corner the PSOE, as in its day the Socialists did with the PP at a very high electoral and political cost – the motion of censure against Rajoy originated from the condemnation of the PP for the Gürtel case – . For this reason, the case will not be forgotten so soon, and the formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo has started an offensive that will be dosed over time, in order to reach the elections, although the Minister Spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, considered , in the press conference held after the Council of Ministers yesterday, that the case "will have no electoral cost and the citizens will value that action be taken quickly."
The PP has begun by requesting the appearances of Nadia Calviño and Margarita Robles. Calviño is the president of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Public Administration and Policies, an instrument of the Government's international cooperation that develops projects not only in Ibero-America, in fact it has numerous programs in Africa. Precisely one of them was directed by the brigadier general of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas, the only alleged member of the plot that has entered prison. Some of the businesses in which Espinosa was allegedly involved affect the Ministry of Defense, and hence Robles' request to appear.
Feijóo considers that what is known so far is just the tip of the iceberg and that what happened is "a bomb in ethical principles", of the PSOE.
Not only the PP will not let the case pass as easily as the Socialists claim. At the moment, Cs has already requested an investigation commission and Esquerra Republicana and Compromís do not rule out joining the lawsuit. The PNV does not think the same, which believes that "the possibility of investigating parliamentarians is quite constrained", which is why it trusts in the judicial investigation, as the PSOE now maintains.
The government partner, United We Can, has not overlooked what was discovered. Pablo Echenique described the events as "extremely serious and shameful, illegal and immoral", although he said that he will not support an investigation commission so as not to give the PP a chance.
The scandal has affected the Lower House itself to the extent that, according to the investigation, the former Socialist deputy received businessmen linked to the plot in Congress itself. Hence, the services of the Cortes have agreed that the procedure for the communication of visits from outside the Chamber be modified as of today.
Parliamentary sources assure that this decision has nothing to do with the Mediator case and that, in reality, the same data will be recorded as before when someone from outside accesses the Chamber. What changes is the method of communication, which previously consisted of an e-mail sent to security and will now be registered in a second registry for cases like the one that now has the Chamber horrified.
