Spanish Political Corruption Update - Ábalos and Koldo go to prison
Also: maybe the US isn't that bad
Things are going from bad to worse in Spain.
In case you haven’t been following along, Spanish President / Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is surrounded on all sides by corruption.
His wife is going on trial, soon. His brother has just been on trial – verdict pending. His former right hand man is going to prison. And he acts like nothing is amiss.
This week, the big news is that José Luis Ábalos (the former Minister of Transport, right-hand man, and frequent customer of Spain’s prostitution industry) is going away for a long time.
The Spanish Supreme Court sentenced Ábalos to 24 years in prison, and his partner in crime Koldo García got 19. (This being Spain, the sentences they actually serve will be significantly less than that.)
All this is for building a criminal organization and enriching themselves on public funds, by selling surgical masks to the government during the pandemic. I explained it in a couple of articles on my website: Caso Koldo and also the Revenge of Caso Koldo.
(I should mention in passing that Victor de Aldama, a businessman who was involved in the several parts of Caso Koldo, was let off with community service – in exchange for his collaboration with justice in the case.)
Ex-President Zapatero’s Jewels
Also in the news: Sánchez’s Socialist predecessor, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his shady dealings involving the bailout of an airline called Plus Ultra.
When police raided his office, ol’ ZP was found to have a safe full of very expensive (and undeclared) jewellery. Money laundering is a possible explanation.
I talked about that in this article on PSOE corruption – now Zapatero is claiming that his rights are being violated by the judicial investigation and that the whole case should be thrown out.
And what do I know? Maybe it will be.
Here’s the podcast episode about Zapatero’s legal issues, and other topics…
Following the daily news on these cases is exhausting and I’d prefer not to do it. For that kind of thing, maybe subscribe to The Bubble Newsletter – they have more frequent updates.
Will Pedro Sánchez resign as President of the Spanish government?
Actually, I keep hoping Sánchez will just resign so I can bring this sad saga to an end, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
This week the Spanish parliament passed a non-binding motion requesting that he step down, and he’s (so far) ignoring it. He claims that his wife and brother are victims of a right-wing conspiracy, and that there’s actually very little corruption in his party.
I don’t think anyone believes that. But so far, he can get away with saying it.
The elephant in the room, at least for me, is that opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo doesn’t seem to be a Presidential-caliber human being either.
He’s had several years to make a positive impression on me, at this point, and he hasn’t.
More like no impression.
America’s 250th Anniversary
In somewhat related news, we’re coming up on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – you know, the founding document of the USA, my other home country.
As an American who’s lived abroad for a couple of decades, something quite interesting has happened to me: the longer I’m away, the more I realize that the US is truly, truly a great country.
Sure, Spain has a lot of upsides – and the US has several large problems.
But honestly, the US’s problems tend to be high quality: for example, people from every other country on the planet are BEGGING to live there. Millions of them. The debate about what to do with them is one of our biggest national issues.
You can’t say that about too many other places.
And you can say what you want about the US’s leadership, but our Constitution is strong and so is our national self-image.
At least if you ignore the shrieking minority of haters.
Spain is not better than the US
Having followed corruption scandal after corruption scandal in Spain for over 20 years now, I would not say that Spanish politics is any better than politics in the US.
It’s bad over here, and I don’t suspect that whoever comes after Pedro Sánchez will be much better.
After all, the previous President / Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, also stepped down after a vote of no-confidence, due to similar corruption issues.
That’s how Sánchez got here. And it’s probably how he’ll leave.
I’d love to get someone who’s honest and ready to make some tough decisions about the future of Spain for our next PM. But I wouldn’t count on it happening.
Public apathy about politics is high.
Anyway, I’ll be voting in the upcoming Spanish election, which is going to be an interesting exercise, because I don’t like any of the parties. In fact, I can think of pretty good reasons to dislike all of them.
But I’m going to have to pick one. Somehow.
Wish me luck.
Yours,
Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.
P.S. I’ve got a whole lot more over on The Chorizo Chronicles blog, for example, an article about the legal grey area which is prostitution in Spain. And don’t forget to check out the Spain to Go podcast, which is everywhere. Enjoy!