The paper by José Luis Ábalos
It’s been a week since José Luis Ábalos left the Mixed Group, after pressure from the PSOE to assume his political responsibility as former minister and number 3 of the party. So far, there is no evidence that directly incriminates him, only the indication of a mediator by the judge based on conversations, images and his “particular interest in the facts under investigation” during the 17 months that the UCO was behind of his ex-advisor. It’s not enough, for now.
But the Koldo case will not end there. It will continue to hover over the entire legislature. There may be amnesty legislation, there may be budgets, and when they are achieved, the shadow will continue. The cause is very extensive, it has more than five hundred documents, and UCO sources point out that the investigation is slow and that it has only now begun to analyze the intervened material. It will be long for everyone, they say. If Ábalos ends up criminally charged, the submission to the Supreme Court will have to be well argued, not like in the courts of inquiry where any newspaper clipping is valid. And for that, if there are no surprises, there is still a long way to go. With the PP as a particular accusation, the circles of the possible and the impossible will open.
The background and forms of your ex-advisor
Those who did not see clearly that Ábalos had to take a step back, those who were seduced by his oratory and close empathy, are now changing their minds. Just look at what his trusted man for years was doing. On the internet there is everything, from shellfish, “whores and breasts”, to the freedom of his ex-advisor to relate to businessmen and public officials. All this suggests that the instruction begins with the commissions of the masks and who knows where it will end.
Without the limit on Ábalos, the PSOE was trying to cover it up. Without this barrier, the government would lose credibility to mark a before and after where they defend that the plot did not arrive. The crossfire of the PP to go beyond Koldo is aimed at Pedro Sánchez, with a strategic stop to Francina Armengol. The third State authority does not appear in the summary, nor do the officials who processed the contract. From their previous team they try to explain a file and the management of a low-intensity fraud (the material was of worse quality than what was paid for) and not a bribe.
The comparison with the case of the mayor of Madrid
The PP has problems separating Armengol’s contract from the case of the Madrid mayor’s masks. In his case the recommendation did not come from a ministry, it was José Luis Martínez Almeida’s cousin who brought the two fraudsters to the town hall. The son of Naty Abascal, Luis Medina, and Alberto Luceño took six million in commissions without any experience in managing health equipment. The money was not claimed, nor was it returned after the investigation. The company that Transports suggested to Francina Armengol had a certificate of suitability. In the case of Madrid, Almeida signed it himself in English and Spanish to help commissioners carry gloves, pots and masks. As in the Balearic Islands, they were not fake, they were of lower quality than the agreed. And Armengol’s late claim was never given to Madrid. The administrative abandonment to recover part of the money from the contract affects the management of the PSOE to activate it three years later; and to the PP for letting seven months go by without claiming until the deadline expired in January.
Despite everything, the PP sees resignation in one case and normalcy in the other. By Miguel Tellado, the Ferraris of the plot were bought with the indispensable collaboration of Armengol; the villa, luxury cars and watches of the Madrid commissioners have nothing to do with Almeida. The mayor sees the urgent need for the president of Congress to fall, and he, defrauded by the commissioners recommended by his cousin, does not move. The so-called PP measure is the incoherence that will envelop the Koldo case and make it harder to distinguish the signal from the noise. Never mind employment records or that 2024 points to a good economic year. And who would have told the PSOE that the amnesty law would be the rarity on the week’s news agenda.