With the deadline to present candidates to lead the Anti-Fraud Agency closed, no political party with representation in Les Corts Valencianes has presented its alternative. Thus, four civic organizations have registered the names of two candidates who seem doomed to failure due to the lack of agreement between the four parties that make up the Valencian Chamber.
To elect the replacement of Joan Llinares, director of the Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption of the Valencian Community since its constitution, the support of three-fifths of the Les Corts plenary session is necessary, which forces the right ( PP and Vox) to add the support of one of the two left-wing parties (PSPV and Compromís) or to achieve the support of the popular ones.
At the moment, there are two names on the table. That of the current director of Analysis and Investigation of the Anti-Fraud Agency, Gustavo Segura, proposed by up to three entities - the Foundation for Justice, Acción Cívica and the Observatori Ciutadà contra la Corrupció-; and that of Eduardo Beut, proposed by the Spanish Association of Managers for Public Administration (AEGAP).
Neither Compromís nor PSPV trust the latter as they deny being a Zaplanist candidate. Beut was delegate of the Tax Agency in the Valencian Community between 1999 and 2002 and was ex-president of Fecoval, the employers' association of public works contractors. However, the trustee of Compromís, Joan Baldoví, denounced this Wednesday that "it is extremely suspicious that a person linked to the PP presents a close collaborator of Eduardo Zaplana as a candidate to lead the Antifraud Agency".
Baldoví pointed out that this proposal "responds to a hidden objective of trying to block or suppress an agency that was created by the Botànic government." Beut "has had a direct professional and friendship relationship with the former president of the Generalitat Eduardo Zaplana and his former chief of staff Juan Francisco García," declared Baldoví.
A decision that is shared, privately, by PSPV sources who understand that the proposal of the president of the AEGAP is a cover name for the PP. This is denied by popular negotiators who point out that they had two candidates in mind although, in the end, they have not proposed any, aware that any name that came from their party would immediately be rejected by the opposition. "It is not a strategy," say the popular ones who are willing to talk to the opposition to seek agreements.
It will not be easy. The socialists reject Beut's name out of hand and are considering Segura's, which, in principle, would have the endorsement of Compromís for his election. In this context, the PP is willing to sit down and talk to unblock the situation. In fact, they do not rule out facilitating the replacement in the Anti-Fraud Agency with their votes.
However, they point out that this agreement should serve to facilitate other renewals. In the PP they are aware that electing all the members of the six expired statutory bodies is very complicated, but they understand that if they give in in some area (such as Anti-Fraud), the left must do its part.
The problem, they reiterated yesterday from the ranks of the opposition, is that they have no intention of entering into agreements where Vox is also present because they understand that, whenever they can, they must leave the extreme right out. A formula that makes consensus difficult since PP and Vox are partners in both the Parliament and the Valencian Government and it is difficult for the popular ones to leave out the party whose votes they need in each vote.
