Fernando Grande-Marlaska (Bilbao, 1962) will become in a couple of months the Minister of the Interior who has managed to remain in office the longest. In mid-January he will surpass the socialist José Barrionuevo, who until then will hold the title of holding out the longest at the head of this department. A week ago, his closest collaborators assumed that his time in the Interior was over. A change of Government would serve to conclude a stage without the President of the Government giving the opposition the prey that they have been wanting to hunt for years. But Pedro Sánchez has done it again: Marlaska will continue to head the Interior. An appointment that must respond to the number of surprises that, sources close to him said, were in store.
Months ago, the magistrate told his circle of friends that he considered his time as a member of the Council of Ministers to be amortized. He did it, for example, during a meal in El Escorial (Madrid), where some weekends he finds refuge, far from the chaos of the capital. He commented that his time at Interior had eroded his professional image. And not because he is not convinced of his good management at the head of the Ministry, but because of the voracious opposition that the right has practiced during these five years. He was clear, as he commented, that he would not return in the immediate future to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, where he has his seat. He says he is very disappointed with the judicial world. He still does not understand, although of course he abides by, the setback of the Supreme Court that forced him to reinstate his bête noire in politics. However, if President Sánchez asked him to continue directing the Interior, in no case would he refuse.
His ministerial team also concluded the cycle. “Packing boxes” or “picking up things,” they responded during the calls until on the second day of the investiture debate, moments before the vote, the President of the Government claimed in the Chamber that Spain has “an extraordinary Minister of the Interior.” A phrase that some interpreted as a farewell, but that now makes more sense. Many media outlets took the rumor mill to headlines that gave it away from the Government. As so many times in recent years: there have been no pools about government crises that did not remove him from the Ministry. The socialist Antonio Hernando, Sánchez's right-hand man, or Mercedes González, the fleeting former director of the Civil Guard were the names that were heard this time. Some even published that Margarita Robles would be the next Minister of the Interior. They all failed.
In these 1,992 days at the head of the Interior, Marlaska has dealt with an approximate average of one controversy per week. Many of them, mere ammunition for the opposition. The tragic jump to the Melilla fence, the police management of the riots after the procés ruling, the early condemnation of a false homophobic attack, the dismissal of Pérez de los Cobos, the rapprochement of ETA prisoners or even the purchase of a treadmill for the Ministry. Before them, he has always defended his motto of “management and management”, against the noise of the right. Of them, not only has he emerged unscathed, but in the most complicated moments he has received public recognition from the President of the Government.
In her book, Neither Shame nor Fear, she admits that both she and her husband Gorka, with whom she fell in love at first sight, are people who carry life's backpacks full, and that both of them are not lacking in wounds. The biggest one, perhaps, was caused by her mother's rejection when she told him about her sexual orientation. Since that moment she has not lacked encouragement in favor of LGTBI activism, which also permeates her journey within her. But no matter how much shell the wounds build, the minister has not gotten used to the string of insults that he has had to endure in the control sessions. It is enough to review the session diary to gather that they have called him unworthy, a despot, a liar, a traitor, a prevaricator. The months to come do not seem any calmer.
In 2018, he inherited a ministry in which the Popular Party signed one of its darkest stages with Jorge Fernández Díaz at the helm. The former conservative leader faces a request for 15 years in prison for being the X of the parapolice operation launched by the Interior to steal compromising information from Luis Bárcenas. Marlaska boasts of having cleaned the Interior Sewers and of having removed the political overtones that permeate this ministry.
The unions of the National Police and associations of the Civil Guard have had it in their sights since the beginning of time, despite the fact that the State Security Forces and Corps reached 156,453 troops in July of this year (74,458 national police and 81,995 guards). civilians), the highest number in history. With the PP, 13,000 agents from our streets and cities had been lost. With an investment of nearly 1.1 billion euros, the salary of members of the National Police and the Civil Guard has increased by an average of 36%, the largest increase experienced by public officials in the history of democracy.
The hardest moments in these five years, as sources close to the minister say, were experienced during the controversy over the jump over the Melilla fence, in which at least 23 people died after a cruel response from the Moroccan police. The Prosecutor's Office ended up shelving the open investigation proceedings after verifying that no migrant died on Spanish soil, but until then it had criticism from all sides. Even from the Council of Ministers, led by the Unidas Podemos wing. Also the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, - whom Marlaska supported during his campaign as a candidate for the Presidency of the Community of Madrid - also harshly attacked him through reports of dubious consistency. The pandemic was another of the hardest moments.
On a personal level, she has rarely been as affected as the day she announced that María Gámez would stop being director of the Civil Guard due to an alleged case of corruption that affected her husband. The campaign for the local and regional elections was just around the corner and Ferraz could not allow an alleged scandal to cloud the campaign. She announced that she decided to step aside, but the truth is that she was pushed to the precipice by Moncloa. The minister, who appeared before the media with glassy eyes, did not verbalize what, clearly, seemed to him an injustice. He did not want to answer whether he, a career judge who carries the presumption of innocence as his flag, would resign if a family member of his were involved in an alleged case of corruption.
In this legislature that began in August, it will have to continue responding to the migration crisis, especially aggravated in the Canary Islands. Since 2018, the ministry has opted for a strategy based on real cooperation with countries of origin and transit and the fight against mafias that traffic people. However, the new crisis of the Senegalese cayucos has exploded when his team thought that this year the balance of irregular entries would end in negative numbers. Quite the opposite, despite the fact that according to the Interior, 40% of departures to Spain this year have been avoided at origin.
Complicated times are coming in the Interior with the streets agitated by protests against the pacts between the Government and the independence parties. His department must also decide whether to process the request for bodyguards for former president Carles Puigdemont. But the ministry, after almost 2,000 days of management with Marlaska's signature, is in gear. Waiting for the opposition to light a “new fire in the Interior.”
