I haven't made many
political rants about Spain lately, because there's almost anything new to
say....However, today I've read some articles that showed what's the real
situation in Spain, so it's worth commenting it now.
First, for those who do not know, some years ago the bursar of the ruling party (PP) was accused of participating in a corruption case that implicated other members of this party, regional leaders mostly. Investigations were done, while PP and the bursar claimed together that it was all a a lie and they were innocent. However, some months ago, proofs were found about the bursar's culpability, and then PP tried to isolate him and say that what he did was not in the party's name and that he was a liar and bad person in general.
A few months ago, some papers form this bursar surfaced. It may be that he made them surface himself. Whatever the origin, these papers indicated that, in the last 20 years or so, PP had been illegally financed using donations that surpassed the legal limit. The companies that gave these donations later on got public contracts for lots of money. The papers also showed secret payments to all the party leaders and lots of other people. The papers seem to be from the bursar, and seem to be a secret accounting of the party.
PP answered saying that the papers were made up to wrongly accuse them. Different tests disproved this theory, and several people inside the party claimed that they received some of the lesser payments that appear on the papers. The bursar also claimed that he did not do these papers, but writing analysis disproved that too. Finally the bursar declared that the papers were real, that he made them himself, and that he paid to the party leaders all this undeclared money. PP is saying that the bursar lies (since, you know, he was lying before too), but there has not been any other explanations or resignations at all.
Meanwhile, the papers have also shown that the current president of the Constitutional Court, made up by judges which should be independent from politics, since they decide important interpretations of the Spanish constitution, was paying a fee to the party, which is the fee that any party member needs to pay. The judge has admitted that he belongs to that party, but sees no problem in that, since he's not part of the party's directive, and will not resign because of this.
Kind of unrelated to that but also important, just now the Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a member of PP that has been condemned to 6 years of prison because of a case of influence peddling, embezzlement and other such charges, should only have 9 months of prison and considered some of these charges to be void. This case also affects the king's son-in-law and daughter, but they haven't finished their judgment yet.
This same Supreme Court accused an independent judge of 3 different charges, and considered him guilty in one of them, preventing him from working in Spain. This judge was trying to investigate crimes done during Franco's dictatorship, and was also an important part of the investigations that cause the detention of the PP's bursar. This judge has been investigating and trying to condemn human right abuses around the world, among other things.
Meanwhile, the other main Spanish party, PSOE, supposed to be from the left, has also a big corruption scandal in Andalucía, a region where they have been governing for the past 20 years or so. Important people inside the party are accused. This same party also gave lots of contracts to the same companies that appear on the PP bursar's papers. Even if there's no proof of anything illegal regarding these companies and PSOE, you can easily see what's more likely.
In Catalunya, it has been declared that the ruling party, CIU, got money from a scandal that has happened in a public institution. The director of the institution embezzled lots of funds, and it seems he used some of these funds to donate to the party. That same party has another 2 cases of corruption going on, where its leaders are implicated. Such leaders also have some Switzerland accounts, apparently.
Both CIU and PP, one in Catalunya and the other in Spain, have been privatizing our public healthcare. Most of the private companies that are taking the contracts have in their directive ex-members of the party. Another group of companies that have ex-politicians (from PP and PSOE) in their directive are energy companies. This week a new law was created that says that if you want to use solar panels or any other source of electricity controlled by yourself, in order to store this electricity you will need to pay them.
We could continue all day long, and comment about the laws that have been created to lower salaries and make it easier to fire people. Or the incredible number of open corruption cases everywhere in Spain, with the judges that are really trying to uncover them getting dead threats and such things. Or the fact that most condemned corrupt politicians and police officers accused of brutality or torture usually get governmental pardons, bypassing the justice system and making them free. And let's not even get started with the banks and the house prices....
The conclusions are clear: The legislative power has been corrupted. The executive power is corrupted as well, and it's actually managed by the same people that in the legislative power. The judicial power is corrupted in the high courts, but there's some hope in there, since it seems there are still lots of independent judges. Most big companies are the ones corrupting things, and they don't allow competitors.
Currently PP has absolute majority on the parliament, and therefore any initiative to change things will be cancelled right away. Any explanations that they may give will probably be all lies anyway, as their program showed (they did exactly the contrary of what their program said after elections). Other parties are not better, especially if they're big enough.
Finally, the worst thing: even with the list of problems that we're mentioning, PP and PSOE would still be the most voted forces if there were elections now. Lots of people got disgusted by their actions, yes, but there is still a huge number of supporters. What's worse, lots of old supporters would rather not vote instead of trying to find a party that represents them better. With most newspapers and news agencies backing these two parties, it's also very difficult to give an alternative that actually reaches people.
If there were elections right now, it would be messy, but PP could still rule with the help of CIU and probably UPD (another new party who has the same ideology as PP, and its leader also appeared sometimes in the bursar's papers). PSOE could also rule with help, maybe, but the whole point of the problem is that these 2 parties have been ruling for too long....
Some international criminal agencies like IMF and the World Bank are also saying that governments need to be strong, and therefore coalitions of parties are too unstable to rule, basically supporting PP and PSOE by scaring people predicting chaos (and by the way, this argument is also a great way to declare that dictatorships are the best type of government for the economy, you cannot get stronger than that).
After reaching this point, I again see only two solutions:
1-We need a party that is really independent and not corrupt. These parties exists, especially if they have not ruled much yet. This party would need to get enough votes to bypass PP and PSOE (and probably CIU, UPD and PNV too) and get a majority of votes, and then create a new constitution and new laws. In the process, it should also dissolve the current High Courts, and establish that these courts need to be created by the judges only (the constitutional court is formed by the parliament right now, which shows how "separated" are powers in Spain).
2-We do the same as in 1-, but in order to do so first we proceed to kill all the current party directives, courts, bank owners, etc. that have caused this situation.
However, Spanish population seems to be...sedated, and both 1st and 2nd solution do not seem possible, because people do not seem to care, even when their unhappiness is a direct result of these rulers....Spanish people seem to care only about sports, and everybody is staying at home, voting the same parties, doing the same things, never reacting, never thinking....
This will continue as long as we allow it and support it by considering it "normal", or that it's "Spanish culture".
Every day that Spanish people fail to react, I get the impression that Spain's solution to lots of its problems is a surgical nuclear strike...
First, for those who do not know, some years ago the bursar of the ruling party (PP) was accused of participating in a corruption case that implicated other members of this party, regional leaders mostly. Investigations were done, while PP and the bursar claimed together that it was all a a lie and they were innocent. However, some months ago, proofs were found about the bursar's culpability, and then PP tried to isolate him and say that what he did was not in the party's name and that he was a liar and bad person in general.
A few months ago, some papers form this bursar surfaced. It may be that he made them surface himself. Whatever the origin, these papers indicated that, in the last 20 years or so, PP had been illegally financed using donations that surpassed the legal limit. The companies that gave these donations later on got public contracts for lots of money. The papers also showed secret payments to all the party leaders and lots of other people. The papers seem to be from the bursar, and seem to be a secret accounting of the party.
PP answered saying that the papers were made up to wrongly accuse them. Different tests disproved this theory, and several people inside the party claimed that they received some of the lesser payments that appear on the papers. The bursar also claimed that he did not do these papers, but writing analysis disproved that too. Finally the bursar declared that the papers were real, that he made them himself, and that he paid to the party leaders all this undeclared money. PP is saying that the bursar lies (since, you know, he was lying before too), but there has not been any other explanations or resignations at all.
Meanwhile, the papers have also shown that the current president of the Constitutional Court, made up by judges which should be independent from politics, since they decide important interpretations of the Spanish constitution, was paying a fee to the party, which is the fee that any party member needs to pay. The judge has admitted that he belongs to that party, but sees no problem in that, since he's not part of the party's directive, and will not resign because of this.
Kind of unrelated to that but also important, just now the Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a member of PP that has been condemned to 6 years of prison because of a case of influence peddling, embezzlement and other such charges, should only have 9 months of prison and considered some of these charges to be void. This case also affects the king's son-in-law and daughter, but they haven't finished their judgment yet.
This same Supreme Court accused an independent judge of 3 different charges, and considered him guilty in one of them, preventing him from working in Spain. This judge was trying to investigate crimes done during Franco's dictatorship, and was also an important part of the investigations that cause the detention of the PP's bursar. This judge has been investigating and trying to condemn human right abuses around the world, among other things.
Meanwhile, the other main Spanish party, PSOE, supposed to be from the left, has also a big corruption scandal in Andalucía, a region where they have been governing for the past 20 years or so. Important people inside the party are accused. This same party also gave lots of contracts to the same companies that appear on the PP bursar's papers. Even if there's no proof of anything illegal regarding these companies and PSOE, you can easily see what's more likely.
In Catalunya, it has been declared that the ruling party, CIU, got money from a scandal that has happened in a public institution. The director of the institution embezzled lots of funds, and it seems he used some of these funds to donate to the party. That same party has another 2 cases of corruption going on, where its leaders are implicated. Such leaders also have some Switzerland accounts, apparently.
Both CIU and PP, one in Catalunya and the other in Spain, have been privatizing our public healthcare. Most of the private companies that are taking the contracts have in their directive ex-members of the party. Another group of companies that have ex-politicians (from PP and PSOE) in their directive are energy companies. This week a new law was created that says that if you want to use solar panels or any other source of electricity controlled by yourself, in order to store this electricity you will need to pay them.
We could continue all day long, and comment about the laws that have been created to lower salaries and make it easier to fire people. Or the incredible number of open corruption cases everywhere in Spain, with the judges that are really trying to uncover them getting dead threats and such things. Or the fact that most condemned corrupt politicians and police officers accused of brutality or torture usually get governmental pardons, bypassing the justice system and making them free. And let's not even get started with the banks and the house prices....
The conclusions are clear: The legislative power has been corrupted. The executive power is corrupted as well, and it's actually managed by the same people that in the legislative power. The judicial power is corrupted in the high courts, but there's some hope in there, since it seems there are still lots of independent judges. Most big companies are the ones corrupting things, and they don't allow competitors.
Currently PP has absolute majority on the parliament, and therefore any initiative to change things will be cancelled right away. Any explanations that they may give will probably be all lies anyway, as their program showed (they did exactly the contrary of what their program said after elections). Other parties are not better, especially if they're big enough.
Finally, the worst thing: even with the list of problems that we're mentioning, PP and PSOE would still be the most voted forces if there were elections now. Lots of people got disgusted by their actions, yes, but there is still a huge number of supporters. What's worse, lots of old supporters would rather not vote instead of trying to find a party that represents them better. With most newspapers and news agencies backing these two parties, it's also very difficult to give an alternative that actually reaches people.
If there were elections right now, it would be messy, but PP could still rule with the help of CIU and probably UPD (another new party who has the same ideology as PP, and its leader also appeared sometimes in the bursar's papers). PSOE could also rule with help, maybe, but the whole point of the problem is that these 2 parties have been ruling for too long....
Some international criminal agencies like IMF and the World Bank are also saying that governments need to be strong, and therefore coalitions of parties are too unstable to rule, basically supporting PP and PSOE by scaring people predicting chaos (and by the way, this argument is also a great way to declare that dictatorships are the best type of government for the economy, you cannot get stronger than that).
After reaching this point, I again see only two solutions:
1-We need a party that is really independent and not corrupt. These parties exists, especially if they have not ruled much yet. This party would need to get enough votes to bypass PP and PSOE (and probably CIU, UPD and PNV too) and get a majority of votes, and then create a new constitution and new laws. In the process, it should also dissolve the current High Courts, and establish that these courts need to be created by the judges only (the constitutional court is formed by the parliament right now, which shows how "separated" are powers in Spain).
2-We do the same as in 1-, but in order to do so first we proceed to kill all the current party directives, courts, bank owners, etc. that have caused this situation.
However, Spanish population seems to be...sedated, and both 1st and 2nd solution do not seem possible, because people do not seem to care, even when their unhappiness is a direct result of these rulers....Spanish people seem to care only about sports, and everybody is staying at home, voting the same parties, doing the same things, never reacting, never thinking....
This will continue as long as we allow it and support it by considering it "normal", or that it's "Spanish culture".
Every day that Spanish people fail to react, I get the impression that Spain's solution to lots of its problems is a surgical nuclear strike...
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