Concept in Definition ABC

The politics Spanish has gone through many vicissitudes in recent years, leading to a situation that is perhaps the most tortuous since the transition in 1978.

Besides of movement Catalan independence activist, which is perhaps the highest priority issue on the Spanish political agenda and one of the things that most worries opinion public, we also have the numerous cases of political corruption that dot the main Spanish parties and, especially, the Partido Popular.

This right-wing formation has seen how many of its senior leaders and middle managers went through the courts to testify, and were convicted, in cases of large-scale political corruption. scale. A proper name stands out among all these cases: the Gürtel.

The Gürtel plot or Gürtel case is the name given to the investigation of a corruption plot linked to leaders of the Popular Party (PP) of Spain that allowed the Party to be financed and put money in the private pockets of the involved.

The essence of the plot was to award public contracts to certain businessmen willing to finance the party from their private coffers and make payments to the leaders involved.

According to the ruling, the PP benefited as an organization of these income fraudulent, to pay for electoral campaigns, in addition to the personal profit of the party cadres involved.

This case has been so important that it has had ramifications (such as the so-called Bárcenas case by the surname of the former treasurer of the PP), and has been mentioned in other trials also for corruption politics.

In fact, the motion of censure that led to the dismissal of Mariano Rajoy (president of the PP) as president of the government Spanish in June 2018, has two main causes: his disastrous management of the Catalan independence movement, and his involvement in the Gürtel plot, which even led him to testify at the trial.

The investigation begins with the complaint of a former PP councilor in the Majadahonda (Madrid) town hall in 2007.

Jose Luis Peñas, friend businessman Francisco Correa (who would later reveal himself as one of the leaders of the corrupt plot) was the whistleblower who started the entire legal machine.

The case became anti-corruption, and it immediately grew in size; Peñas would have received more than a quarter of a million euros from the plot, and had as incriminating evidence of recordings obtained secretly in meetings.

Along with Correa, three more businessmen were involved: Álvaro Pérez - known for “the whiskers”For his pronounced mustache-, Pablo Crespo and Antoine Sánchez.

The whiskers it will be, a posteriori and together with Correa, one of the most mediatic faces of the case.

In 2009, the first arrests took place, with an instruction by the famous judge Baltasar Garzón, who will be removed from the case when he is suspended from his duties as judge in 2010.

There are well-founded suspicions - although to date not proven - that the reason for the suspension de Garzón was purely political, due to this case as well as his investigations into the crimes of It hurts humanity of the Franco regime, which began to affect leaders or former leaders of the PP.

In 2010, the case came to the fore after an investigative report published by the newspaper Spanish El País, with a leftist tendency (close to the PSOE, the rival socialist formation of the PP, right).

From this moment until now, the case will attract media interest, occupying front pages in all print media (both in paper and digital) and opening newscasts, especially from the conclusion of the trial and with its peak when the verdict.

The investigation it has been long and laborious due to the large number of indicted persons and the large number of existing evidence.

The main one has perhaps been the so-called "Bárcenas papers"A fraudulent accounting that detailed non-legal payments to senior party cadres, among them, presumably the president of the Spanish government himself.

And why do I say presumably? Well, because these papers contained payments in the name of M. Rajoy (obviously, Mariano Rajoy, a surname and an initial that, together, are not so common, and less among high leaders of the PP ...), of which the Spanish justice has not been able to establish the link with the person who represented ...

The autonomous communities where these cases occurred were, mainly, Valencia, Madrid, and Andalusia.

The structure used by the corrupt was simple: in exchange for bribes in money or gifts (such as travel or luxury tailored suits) to public officials, public contracts were obtained with an overvaluation that allowed the companies of the plot to profit at the expense of the treasury public.

These companies organized events such as political events (rallies), congresses, presence at fairs, as well as were in charge of municipal services such as citizen information.

The plot not only profited, but established a series of clientelism relationships in the worst of senses, which facilitated its work: where there was a mayor or alderman of the PP involved, the companies that won the most public contracts made an appearance juicy.

According to the 2018 ruling, the PP itself profited, as late as 1989, from this plot, paying part of some of its electoral campaigns with the money that came out of these corruptions.

Even some works in the central headquarters of the PP in Madrid have been partially paid for with black money from these corruption operations.

The PP is, at least as far as I know, the only party in Europe - at least since the Second World War - that has been found guilty as a legal entity for crimes of corruption.

A "mystery" (perhaps not so much) that has surrounded the Gürtel case has been the numerous related people who have died in strange circumstances during the investigation.

This is the case of the banker Miguel Blesa, who allegedly committed suicide with a hunting gun when there was a possibility that he made certain confessions to lighten his sentence.

Likewise, the former mayor of Valencia, Rita Barberá, also died in strange circumstances when she began to distance herself from the PP.

The jokes about how bad it was for your health to be mentioned in the Gürtel case ran like wildfire among the citizenship Spanish; up to a dozen people died during the investigation, some in strange circumstances, such as double falls at her home, or a motorcycle accident falling off a ravine.

The Gürtel case has been the largest, but not the only one that has suffered a country in which, at times, it seems that political corruption is widespread.

Photo: Fotolia - Rider

Issues in Case Gürtel