Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2013, as an opinion column written the day after the Bárcenas papers came out. Rajoy is the sitting prime minister, Cospedal’s statement is today’s, and the 2012 tax amnesty is in the news.
- Can a fraudster collect the people’s money?
- Can people who steal from the public ask the population to make sacrifices?
- Can people who should already be under formal investigation govern a country?
- Can the people put up with so much political garbage?
- And if the PP leadership knows nothing about this scheme… can you govern with that level of ignorance and incompetence?
If Spaniards stopped for five minutes to analyze what is happening in Spain, if we could take in the seriousness of this for just a moment…
In the wake of the Bárcenas case (named after Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the governing Partido Popular, or PP), testimonies have come to light that not only reveal a corruption scheme inside the PP but also tarnish the reputation of all political parties in general.
Focusing on the famous envelopes of undeclared cash has made us overlook what some former PP politicians said as they made the rounds of TV studios explaining how parties are financed. They said, as naturally as can be, that parties receive donations from private companies, many of them large construction firms. I believe that when money is donated to a political party in exchange for a public works contract, ethically it stops being a “donation” and becomes a good old-fashioned bribe.
Today we saw the statement by María Dolores de Cospedal, in which she obviously knows nothing about envelopes or off-the-books money. What’s more, she insists that the Partido Popular’s accounts are clear, clean and transparent (she meant the party’s declared accounts, not the secret ledger), and even that a hidden hand is plotting against the party. “We will take the appropriate legal action against those who are causing these defamations,” Cospedal said, taking it for granted that someone is defaming them.
It makes no sense to think that two major newspapers like El Mundo and El País have agreed to bring out “this false evidence” and these supposedly “doctored documents” that directly accuse Mariano Rajoy and Cospedal of having received, for years, part of the money from illicit activities. The editors of these newspapers are perfectly calm and will sleep soundly knowing the information is true and that they have uncovered something that shouldn’t surprise us, because I don’t believe everyone didn’t already know or suspect it. And I don’t think they would forge a document and make a false accusation like this, knowing it would have serious consequences. For heaven’s sake, Spain is a country of crooks, not of madmen on that scale.
It is quite a coincidence that the documents include the same names that Julio Anguita brought up as holders of Swiss bank accounts, supposedly from a list handed over by a former employee of a Swiss bank. That list once again included the surnames Aznar and Cospedal (among many others). Today we see those names again in the documents published by El País, with some new additions that now include the current prime minister, Mariano Rajoy.
At this point, all these figures can only deny the accusations, and Spaniards can only hope that the justice system does its job, although it would be a lot to assume that justice in our country isn’t just as politicized and corrupt. Just look at the evidence of hundreds of pardons for politicians, businesspeople and bankers involved in corruption cases, pardons granted by the two main parties in our country (PP and PSOE). And ask Judge Baltasar Garzón what happens when a judge goes against the interests of a political party.
It has finally been shown that Luis Bárcenas took advantage of the tax amnesty, although the Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, now tells us that Bárcenas did not use the tax regularization “as an individual” or “as a legal entity”, but “through intermediaries”. Let’s see who can prove that Montoro knew Bárcenas had used the tax amnesty, something he has denied on several occasions.
As the writer Alberto Vázquez has said, Spaniards must start defending themselves, because the way politicians make money now resembles the way the Mafia does. Today, as far as I’m concerned, this party has lost what little credibility it had: not only has it done nothing to fight unemployment, but it has probably stolen from Spaniards.
Given what we’ve seen, with all the rats and crooks we have in this country, the only way to put an end to corruption here would be to make it legal.
Featured image: FDV, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
