COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘You covered it up!’: Spain’s right ups ante against govt in face mask scandal

Spain's left-wing government is facing growing pressure from the country's right-wing opposition over a corruption case linked to the purchase of face masks during the pandemic.

Published: 6 March 2024 09:17 CET

'You covered it up!': Spain's right ups ante against govt in face mask scandal

"You knew about it and you covered it up!" PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo accused Sánchez last week, without offering any proof. (Photo by Thomas COEX and Aris OIKONOMOU / AFP)

The case hit the headlines in February after police arrested several people in connection with a kickbacks scandal, one of whom was a close aide to a former minister and key ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

But as the probe has deepened, the right-wing Popular Party (PP) has demanded the resignation of parliamentary speaker Francina Armengol, who holds the third-highest office in Spain after the king and the prime minister.

The scandal emerged on February 21st with the arrest of Koldo García, a close adviser to José Luis Ábalos, who served as transport minister from 2018-2021 and a key member of Sánchez’s Socialist party.

Garcia is suspected of being a central player in a scheme that let a small, previously unknown firm, Soluciones de Gestión (Management Solutions), obtain contracts worth €53 million ($57.5 million) to supply masks to various public authorities between March and June 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

Those contracts allegedly generated kickbacks worth €9.5 million.

Since his arrest, the media, notably right-leaning outlets, have run non-stop coverage of the so-called “Koldo affair”.

With more revelations emerging daily, the scandal has put the government on the back foot as it faces a string of increasingly harsh attacks from the right.

Although Ábalos was not initially implicated in the affair, the Socialist party asked him to stand down as an MP to take “political responsibility” for a scandal that occurred on his watch.

But when he refused, saying it would be seen as “an admission of guilt”, they suspended him pending expulsion.

‘You covered it up!’

It has since emerged that the investigating judge believes Ábalos acted as an “intermediary”.

Ábalos was replaced as transport minister during a 2021 government reshuffle, and the PP has claimed his removal showed that Sanchez was aware of the scandal and had sought to sideline him.

“You knew about it and you covered it up!” PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo accused Sánchez last week, without offering any proof.

And the party has also upped the ante over contracts the company signed with two of Spain’s 17 regions, both governed at the time by the Socialists: one with the Canary Islands, worth €12.2 million and a second with the Balearic Isles, worth €3.7 million.

Ángel Victor Torres, who headed the Canary Islands regional government at the time, is now territorial policy minister and the former regional head of the Balearic Isles is Armengol, the current parliamentary speaker.

The PP has demanded to know how the Balearics administration could have awarded such a large contract to a previously unknown company, which had supplied masks that were not of the quality they had paid for.

On Monday, the PP demanded Armengol resign, prompting her to lash back a day later.

“I have never, ever instructed anyone in my governments to hire one company or another,” she said on Tuesday, accusing the opposition of “crossing every red line”.

But her words did little to silence the PP whose spokesman Miguel Tellado once again insisted that she “resign her post as soon as possible”.

Also Monday, the European public prosecutor’s office said it would be investigating the two contracts given that the masks were bought with EU funds.

Spanish media reports said the first casualty was likely to be Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, who heads the public body that manages the ports and paid the firm at the heart of the affair €20 million for eight million masks.

He was expected to be removed from his post on Wednesday following a decision by the transport ministry.

The case is particularly sensitive for Sánchez, who took power in 2018 following a huge corruption scandal that brought down Spain’s right-wing government, and has since prided himself on the integrity and transparency of his administration.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Why regional elections in Catalonia matter to Spain's future

Sunday May 12th will see regional elections in Catalonia at a time when political uncertainty and unpredictability reigns not only in the northern region but across the country. As such, the results could, and likely will, have political ramifications at the national level, perhaps even on the stability of the government itself.

If you follow Spanish politics, you’ll have probably noticed that there’s been quite a lot going on recently. And even if you aren’t a semi-obsessive politico, Spanish politics has been so melodramatic, so unpredictable and (at times) so ridiculous, that in recent months it’s been hard to ignore.

In short: Socialist (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made a pact with Catalan separatist parties to stay in power after last summer’s general election. Part of this was an amnesty law that granted a legal amnesty to people involved in the failed 2017 referendum independence bid, but it caused outrage across many parts of the country and led to weeks of protests, some of which were violent.

Though Sánchez faced a lot of public ire, Carles Puigdemont, the former President of Catalonia who is a fugitive from Spanish law, takes the brunt of the hatred, particularly from the Spanish right and far-right. Puigdemont is running again in the regional election on May 12th, and has already stated that he will leave politics if he isn’t re-elected.

More recently, Sánchez shocked the country by publishing a highly personal letter on Twitter/X, reportedly released without the advice of his advisors or cabinet colleagues, stating that he was taking five days out to consider his future following repeated attacks against his wife over alleged influence peddling. This came right before the Catalan campaign kicked off and essentially brought politics to a standstill and left the country in limbo.

Sánchez then disappeared from public life, shut himself away in his La Moncloa residence and considered his future, leaving the country in the midst of what felt like a telenovela – a soap opera. On Monday he announced he was staying on and attempted to use the decision as a pivot moment to reinvigorate his government, strengthen Spanish democracy, and to make a stand against what Sánchez describes as the far-right ‘mud machine’.

Others view things differently. While Sánchez supporters see the debacle as a brave affront to right-wing harassment and lawfare tactics used against him, critics have described it as farcical, manipulative, and opposition Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said that Sánchez had “made a fool of himself” and embarrassed Spain on the global scene.

Many view the move as cynical electioneering, and Sánchez does indeed have a well deserved reputation as a somewhat machiavellian political maneuverer.

But how can Sánchez’s five day mini-sabbatical be electioneering if Spain had elections as recently as last summer? Here’s where the upcoming Catalan elections come in again.

Why regional elections in Catalonia matter to Spain’s future

In short: the results of the Catalan elections have the potential to disrupt the delicate power balance in Madrid.

Some context: in the Catalan regional government, pro-independence parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Junts per Catalunya (Puigdemont’s party) and the smaller Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) have an absolute majority. This allowed separatist parties, namely ERC and Junts, greater political leverage when negotiating the amnesty with Sánchez and the PSOE last year.

Though some, particularly in Junts, would like the amnesty (which is still yet to be approved in the Senate) to go further, the national government has more or less survived since the summer based on this uneasy truce. Depending on the results in Catalonia on May 12th, we may see just how fragile it really is.

Exiled Catalan separatist leader, MEP and founder of the Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party Carles Puigdemont gives a speech during a meeting to present his list for the upcoming regional elections in Catalonia, in Elna, southwestern France. (Photo by Matthieu RONDEL / AFP)

What do the polls say? Most seem to have the PSC (the PSOE’s sister party in Catalonia) making big gains and becoming the biggest party in the Generalitat, with leader Salvador Illa becoming President. According to RTVE’s average of polls, the PSC is on course to win 39 seats, six more than in 2021. Junts is projected to be in second place with 32 seats and would thus overtake ERC, which would get 28, a loss of 5 seats, though some polls put ERC in second and Junts third.

However, no poll gives the PSC an absolute majority of 68 seats needed to govern alone. As such, the PSC, should it win, will require the votes of far-left Comuns-Sumar, but also a coalition arrangement with a pro-independence party, most likely ERC.

However, polling from El Nacional, a Catalan newspaper, estimates that undecided voters still make up a third (33.5 percent) of the Catalan electorate, so there will likely be some variation from polling data to the results on election day.

Interestingly, Sánchez’s five day reflection period seems to have actually boosted PSOE polling numbers overall on a national level. According to a flash poll taken following the letter, the PSOE vote intention surged.

But the move has not proven popular with politicians in Catalonia, particularly among the pro-independence parties Sánchez’s government relies on in Madrid. The current President of the Generalitat and ERC candidate Pere Aragonès accused Sánchez of exploiting the “empathy” of the Spanish public “for an exclusively political purpose”, describing the “five day comedy” as “yet another electoral manoeuvre.”

The ERC has even made a complaint to Spain’s electoral authority about Sánchez’s decision and subsequent interview on Spanish state TV, claiming it could have breached electoral rules by favouring the PSOE candidacy in the Catalan election.

Junts general secretary Jordi Turull, meanwhile, has accused Sánchez of “interfering in the Catalan election.”

Remember, these are the parties that prop up the Sánchez government at the national level.

Protesters hold up a banner reading “Pedro (Sánchez), traitor” and “Spain is not for sale” during an anti-amnesty protest in Madrid. (Photo by Pierre-Philippe MARCOU / AFP)

Potential scenarios

So, it’s safe to say that things are tense in Spanish politics. Sánchez has angered a lot of people with his period of reflection — not only his opponents but also those who prop up his government in Congress. Conversely, the move does seem to have increased PSOE support overall ahead of polling day, and the PSC seems to be on course to win in Catalonia.

With no party likely to win an absolute majority, the Catalan results on May 12th will require coalitions, which could in turn have a ripple effect on alliances in Madrid. This is principally because there is a possibility that ERC or Junts could be left out of the Generalitat, which could remove the incentive for one (or even both, in the unlikely event of a PSC absolute majority) pro-independence parties to keep Sánchez in the Moncloa, or at the very least to demand more from him.

The polls suggest the most likely outcome is the PSC winning the elections but needing the support of ERC. At the national level, this could lead to a split in the separatist movement and would leave Junts’ support in Congress up in the air. Junts could theoretically withdraw its support, topple the government, and trigger further general elections.

Another scenario touted by political pundits is that pro-independence parties could again win an absolute majority between them. This would heap further political pressure on Sánchez, who, after already spending a lot of political capital on the amnesty law, would likely be pressured for further concessions from the Generalitat, namely another referendum but also changes to the amnesty law. Separatist parties would point to their victory, against polling predictions, as a mandate for pushing the pro-independence movement further.

Of course, there’s also the (admittedly unlikely) possibility that Junts per Catalunya win an absolute majority and Puigdemont becomes President of the region, something that would set the scene for his return to Spain and send shockwaves through Spanish politics.

Perhaps there is no better indication of how important this election is than the fact that Sánchez’s first public appearance since his ‘will he, won’t he’ resignation stunt was at the Fería de Barcelona.

Whatever happens in Catalonia on May 12th, two things seem certain: firstly, that people from across the country will be tuning in for the results; and secondly, as the last few years have shown, predictions are essentially useless and anything can happen in Spanish politics.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!