The Strength Of Luis Bárcenas

The Spanish media loves nothing more than a politician or some other member of the prominenti going into or coming out of prison. Because both of these happen so frequently, there might by now be getting-banged-up and not-getting-banged-up fatigue and forgetfulness. Is Jaume Matas still in prison or isn't he? In, out, in or maybe not, we've lost all trace of his whereabouts. But there is no fatigue when the newly liberated is ex-Partido Popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas. What a couple of days he had last week. It is reassuring to have learned that the Spanish prison system does not deny inmates the luxury of a well-tailored suit, a silk tie and a neat white handkerchief tucked into a breast pocket, but then Luis had his audience to impress: the Balearic parliamentary commission considering alleged irregularities and abuses of privileged information regarding the building of Son Espases hospital. There was some formidable video kit on hand to enable Luis to tell nervous commissioners (those from the PP) that the local PP HQ had been built with donations from businesspeople and that he had handed over some eight grand to Matas to help the former Balearics president set himself up in Madrid after losing the election in 2007; some eight grand which had come from the so-called B accounts.

Perhaps more than anything, it is the mystery which surrounds these B accounts that intrigues everyone the most. We are nowhere nearer knowing the truth about what PP leaders insist was some form of elaborate hoax by Bárcenas, but the fact that they imply payments to the likes of Mariano Rajoy is the huge sword hovering over PP heads, ready at any moment to deliver a killing blow, if, that is, the accounts were to be discovered to have been authentic.

Following his star role appearance by video link, Luis found that he was to be a free man, 200 grand having been stumped up for his release on bail. Hence, the media massed and Luis emerged, sporting some high-quality knitwear. "Luis has been really strong," he said with a touch of irony; Rajoy had once sent him a text message telling him to remain strong. The PP has nothing to fear, he also said, but added, perhaps ominously, "at the moment". While he believed that the PP was the right party to continue governing Spain, there are still several months before the election; plenty of time maybe for fear to arise. At the same time as he was preparing to leave the Soto del Real prison, Luis would have been hearing that the state attorney was requesting that he should go back to prison - for 60 years (and eight months); if he is found guilty of charges in respect of the long-dragged-out "caso Gürtel", the biggest corruption scandal of the lot.

Knowing this might be the case, what does Luis have to lose? Freed from prison, we can reach for metaphors of the small arms and artillery variety: Luis, the loose cannon, firing from the hip, going down with all guns blazing. Within no time, i.e. the day after his release, Luis was in fact making it abundantly clear that the PP did have something to fear. Mariano knew about the B accounts all along, he said. Rajoy, on balance, would probably prefer that he was still locked up.

A Few Small Incidents: PP and corruption

On Friday last week, the Spanish premier was assuring anyone in Brussels who might have been listening that he fully respected judicial decisions (Spanish ones) with regard to corruption allegations. Two days later, Mariano Rajoy was in Murcia, addressing a Partido Popular gathering. He reiterated his respect for the judiciary, adding that he had not liked "some things" that had occurred but downplaying the level of corruption. There had been a "few small incidents".

I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories but I am a great believer in the power of coincidence. "Qué casualidad", therefore, when on Monday Murcia found itself at the centre of a series of raids and arrests which threaten to outdo even the "caso Gürtel" in terms of scale and reach. Gürtel, thus named because the German for belt has been used instead of the Spanish "correa", floated to the surface in early 2009. It refers to a businessman, Francisco Correa, and his links to Partido Popular politicians. Its reach has embraced, in most direct terms, the Valencia region and the Madrid community, but its tentacles have spread wider - to the Balearics, for example - and its sheer complexity has found the PP further dragged into the net, because of possible links to the discredited former PP treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. It has been estimated that investigations related to Gürtel have shown that 120 million euros of public money have been somehow "lost". The investigations drag on and on, and they had been started by Baltasar Garzón, the high-profile judge who was an exposer of corruption and an attempted exposer of Franco's war crimes. With the help of a good deal of pressure from PP sources, Garzón was disqualified as a judge. His alleged breaching of the Amnesty Law and so therefore the moratorium on investigating offences committed during the Franco regime was the excuse for his disqualification, but it has been argued that Gürtel was the real reason. So much for the judiciary, eh?

Gürtel is one of Mariano's "few small incidents". Another is the whole Bárcenas affair and the supposed existence of separate accounts through which leading PP politicians and businesspeople received payments in black, one of those politicians - or so the ledger evidence implies - being Mariano. Little has been heard of Bárcenas over the past few months. The judiciary must be hard at work and receiving the full respect of the Spanish premier, his government and his party.

Another "small incident" arose not so long ago, even if its origins are at least fifteen years old. This is the Caja Madrid affair, one that I wrote about recently. It has to do with payments to businesspeople and to politicians (for the most part from the PP) via a so-called black card, a credit card that wasn't a credit card because the credit was never repaid. It was trousered, spent on lavish meals, hotel stays, shopping trips and the amounts spent were not declared. At the centre of this storm is Rodrigo Rato, former president of the bank and an old chum (now un-chummed) of ... Mariano Rajoy.

Presumably, Rajoy had got no wind of the storm that was to break the day after he had spoken in Murcia. Consequently, and if nothing else, he has been made to look pretty foolish. Heaven knows how much public money "Operación Púnica" might find to have been lost, but it could well outstrip Gürtel, and already the investigation net has spread very much further than Gürtel originally did. Madrid, León, Valencia and Murcia; that is a geographical reach which is astonishing in its sheer distance alone. Where else might the investigators look?

It is fair to say that there are non-PP people implicated in Púnica, but it is the PP which is at its epicentre, typified by Francisco Granados, a one-time number two in Madrid and the holder of two Swiss bank accounts. For Rajoy, Púnica is a calamity. That startled and fearful expression he betrays when speaking to camera will now be more startled and fearful. He has been electrocuted by investigators placing fingers into plugs of corruption with such high potential that it becomes almost impossible to see him leaving the burns unit in any fit state to stand again as premier or even to struggle on to the next election.

And in the background there will be someone who, were he used to short-texting with English abbreviations, will be "pmsl". For Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, Púnica is an own goal of such magnitude and embarrassment that the PP may as well now troop off the pitch with their heads hung in shame, hide in the political dressing-room and hope to God the electorate don't turn so nasty that they propel Iglesias into the directors' box. Podemos couldn't have asked for anything better. The PP is Podemos's most effective recruitment agency.

The Stench Of Unaccountability

What should have been expected? That Mariano Rajoy would appear in sackcloth, prostrate himself in front of the Spanish parliament, admit to all the sins of which he had been accused and beg for mercy? Or, in less tragic manner, would have treated the whole affair with lighthearted comedy? " 'El Mundo' got me bang to rights. It's a fair cop but Spanish society is to blame."

Spanish society, a fair proportion of it, had already cleared off to the beaches. Choosing the first of August may not have been accidental. Or perhaps it was just a further example of Rajoy tardiness. He doesn't do things in a hurry. Like going before parliament and clearing up any slight confusion there might be regarding his having allegedly trousered whole loads of black money over a number of years.

Rajoy, normally to be found as far away as it is physically possible for a democratically elected leader to be from any form of interrogation or questioning, had been reticent in having to deal with the inconvenience of addressing some bloody annoying opposition politicians who were going to stage a vote of censure if he didn't come and have a word. Unsurprisingly, once he had finally been persuaded not to carry on hiding in the cupboard, which is what he normally does, he came out in full fighting mode. Clearly, the delay in his making an appearance was so that he could work on his performance. "More aggression, Mariano. Blame the press. Blame Rubalcaba for damaging the reputation of Spain. What was that, Mariano? Yes, there is still a reputation that can be damaged. Just about. If you must, give the baying hordes a little bit. Say you're sorry for having trusted a criminal. That'll be enough."

Uncle Alfredo, along with the other baying hordes, would have known full well that Mariano wasn't going to make a resignation speech and call for an election. And there will be plenty who will argue that there was no basis for him to have to resign. It isn't as if he has been found guilty of anything. Which is true, but then what is the truth?

What we have to ask ourselves, and we are none the wiser after Rajoy's ranting, is whether "El Mundo" and "El País" were taken in by the Bárcenas papers, whether Bárcenas has engaged in some elaborate fabrication and whether, in the case in particular of "El Mundo", the paper had sought to manipulate and distort Bárcenas's documents in an attempt to bring Rajoy down and so create political instability.

Some parts of Spanish society which have been paying any attention and not preferring to lower their ears and eyes under warm seas in the Mediterranean will believe that Bárcenas has indeed made the whole thing up and has attempted to hang an innocent man. Other parts, and they are in a majority, won't know what to think or what to believe other than that the accusations implicit in the Bárcenas papers are symptomatic of the rotten core of Spanish politics.

Rajoy's admission that he made a mistake in trusting Bárcenas was akin to the willingness to make a concession in a negotiation. But Rubalcaba was right to press him on the text messages which showed him offering support to Bárcenas until earlier this year. He was only implicated at the time, argued Rajoy, not condemned. Even if they were just messages born of friendship, they raise questions as to Rajoy's judgement. And, admission or concession, they do not remove the doubts that will linger.

Rajoy's previous evasion was not just typical of him as a person, it was typical of a political system that cannot bear scrutiny. His feistiness in parliament was as much a show of personal slight having been taken as it was of indignation that he should even have to answer questions. He should, or so you would have thought in a supposedly democratic society, have made statements far earlier. But he didn't. And now, despite his admission of a mistake, he has failed to convince. A combination of his own uncommunicativeness, his tardiness and a political system that puts far too low a premium on accountability and ethics draws many to conclusions at variance with what, finally, he told parliament.

More could of course emerge. Bárcenas has only one thing in mind. Revenge. He has been hung out to dry and he doesn't care who he takes down with him. But even were more to emerge, who would know what to believe other than that the whole affair stinks of the stench of an unaccountable political system.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Spain: A Shakespearean tragedy

Horatio: He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus: Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio: Have after. To what issue will this come?
Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio: Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus: Nay, let's follow him.

"Hamlet" is a play about revenge, treachery and corruption. It is a very modern play, but it is also a play which has tended to be reduced in popular culture to the single scene (the soliloquy) and the single line, be it the Yorick one, the nunnery one or the state of Denmark one. "Hamlet" is very much more than these isolated elements. Its greatness lies in its themes and in how enduring they remain.

These themes are expressed in the fourth scene of the play by a minor character. It isn't Hamlet or Horatio who delivers the key line about Denmark, it is Marcellus, a guard.

While the words about Yorick or Ophelia getting herself to a nunnery are placed in the mouth of Hamlet, the main protagonist, why did Shakespeare have Marcellus deliver the Denmark line? And to what was Marcellus actually referring? In the context of the play, he is unimportant, but it is his very unimportance which gives the line added potency. Marcellus, in the present day, might be a man in the street, a bloke in the bar. Joe Public. He is an observer, and he observes that there is a rottenness that comes from the top of the political hierarchy. But note that he is also a guard. A policeman or a member of the army perhaps; from the official security force, that which defends the state of Denmark, a state made rotten by corruption and treachery.

If Marcellus were a guard outside the Palace of Moncloa, the official residence of the Spanish prime minister, who would be the more important characters in a Spanish "Hamlet" for the present day? Who would be the ones committing the treachery? Who would be the ones seeking revenge?

Luis Bárcenas might be seen as either Claudius or Hamlet; Claudius because he has acted treacherously, or so it might be claimed, or Hamlet because he appears to want to have his revenge. But if Bárcenas were to be Hamlet, then Rajoy would have to be Claudius, though Rajoy might cast himself as Hamlet, seeking to avenge the actions of a Claudius who wishes to bring him down.

In fact, Hamlet wouldn't be either of them. Hamlet would be the metaphorical embodiment of the son of the ghost of his father, the fading spectre of a democracy which haunts the castle of Elsinore or Moncloa and commands Hamlet to avenge his death. Hamlet is Spanish society. It is going to want its revenge. Bárcenas and Rajoy would both be Claudius. They would be indivisible, two characters within the same character. They would be like other characters in "Hamlet", Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, once Tom Stoppard had transformed them into his own creations and ones that became so identical that neither of them knew who they were. They would be their own metaphor, the administers of the poison to the ear of that hoped-for democracy.

There will, at some point, be the play within a play, when travelling actors arrive and give Hamlet the chance to narrate and to present the poisoning scene. The play within a play wasn't at the first press conference Rajoy has given since the poison of Bárcenas's revelations had become public. It was never going to be. It was instead a declaration of treachery, of blackmail, of how he would not submit to blackmail. To whom was he referring? His Claudius alter ego who, at the same time, was making further revelations in a courtroom?

The press conference that wasn't a play within a play introduced another minor character, the prime minister of Poland. No one was really interested in his performance. Alas, poor Tusk, no one knew him. He might have been forgiven for thinking he would arrive and find all the main protagonists dead. Just as Fortinbras did, and Fortinbras had, by coincidence, been planning to attack Poland. It was Fortinbras, though, a character from abroad, who expressed his hopes for the future of Denmark, while Horatio was left standing, denied suicide by Hamlet in order to tell the full story.

One day, a Horatio will tell the full story. Maybe. Fortinbras is already here. He hasn't come from Norway but from Brussels. But then, there is also Marcellus. In days of old, when tragedy really was tragedy, guards took matters into their own hands when they saw that things were rotten. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Text messages between Rajoy and Bárcenas suggest PM wanted ex-treasurer to deny B accounts

"El Mundo" has today published alleged text messages between Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy and the former treasurer of the Partido Popular, Luis Bárcenas, and Bárcenas's wife which suggest that Rajoy asked Bárcenas to deny the existence of the so-called B accounts in which there are entries for illegal payments made to Rajoy and other prominent members of the PP. These messages are said to have been made up to as late as March of this year. "El Mundo" also reports that a former member of the PP's executive, Manuel Milián Mestre, has said that everyone knew of the existence of the "bonuses" in the B accounts.

See more: El Mundo

From Economic To Moral Bankruptcy

There are times when the game is up, when you know the game is up but you try to convince yourself that the game can continue, despite evidence to the contrary. There are times when those looking on know that the game is up or believe that the game cannot continue because evidence is weighing heavily against it.

Evidence. This is the key. The evidence points to the game being up. To carry on, confronted with this apparent evidence, becomes variously futile, blind, conceited, delusional, misguided, immoral. But the evidence still remains the key. What if the evidence is wrong, if it has been tampered with, if it has been as corrupted as the apparent corrupt activity it suggests?

The evidence against Mariano Rajoy is the evidence from someone facing charges of tax fraud, bribery, money laundering and forgery. It is a charge list that can be used to argue that the evidence is not sound. How can someone charged in such a way be reliable? How can evidence be reliable? If the evidence is the key, then note, please note, that he - Luis Bárcenas - is charged, among other things, with having forged documents.

Bárcenas may not have forged the so-called B accounts which reveal illicit payments to Mariano Rajoy and others, but might - because the originals of the ledgers that have now been seen suggest that they were created over time and not over a short time - he have created a phantom set of accounts, one that could be used at a future date? Has Bárcenas, for years, been plotting by making false entries into ledgers? Why would he have been plotting in such a way?

If the payments to Rajoy and others weren't genuine, but the ledgers are genuine in that they were compiled over many years, then Bárcenas must have had a reason for producing false evidence that he might subsequently use. If the game might be thought to be up for Rajoy, if the evidence is indeed genuine in all respects, then did Bárcenas, over all those years, believe that another game would be up, one for which he planned for years and years? Plan for a time when he could seek some revenge? For what? Or that he could seek something else? What? And why?

But what sense would there be in fabricating, systematically and over years, false accounts which indicate, among other things, receipts from businesses which might then be favoured in the awarding of construction contracts and payments to leading members of the PP? Bárcenas would have known that fabricated accounts could be disputed and ultimately shown to be fictitious. Or could they? Without paper trails and because of payments in cash, then they hard to disprove. Just as they are hard to prove.

It is understandable that defenders of Rajoy point to Bárcenas's apparent immorality or criminality, as the president of the Balearics has in asking questions as to how Bárcenas came by so many millions of euros. But is Bárcenas's immorality evidence of something else, something that he was aware would come out at some point? For what he was planning? A web of immorality within the Partido Popular that began to be spun many years ago?

It is, however, a different web - one of intrigue - that prevents the consequence of alleged payments to Rajoy occurring, namely his resignation. By any standards of morality, faced with evidence, he should resign. But the evidence is key, and more than a list of entries in a ledger, the evidence now begins to suggest the existence of a web of intrigue, deceit and mistrust that has enveloped the PP.

Untangling this web is likely to be what saves Rajoy. There is proof, but there is no proof. The evidence is key, but the evidence is not evidence. And because of this, the absence of transparency and the presence of secrecy in Spanish politics are exposed. The political system is exposed once more to the accusation of inherent corruption. Truths about this system are devilishly difficult to discover, because of the web that encircles it.

Rajoy, playing the blind man to the alleged evidence, comes before the press at a think-tank and says that green shoots are emerging. They will emerge not this year, not next year but in 2015. He says that economic recovery is coming, but how can one trust his word? One cannot. The recovery goalpost moves. There is no recovery, just as there is no evidence and no proof. Bankrupt. Or all but bankrupt in economic terms. In moral terms? Bankrupt, too, but this assumes there ever has been morality. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Rajoy And The Bárcenas Revelations

Let's just posit a hypothetical situation. "The Guardian" newspaper runs a sensational story which purports to reveal information from ledgers controlled by a treasurer for the Conservative Party. These ledgers are not the official accounts. They are separate accounts. They show receipts from various businesses and payments to various individuals, including members of the party. These payments are not legal. One of the recipients identified in the story and in copies of what are said to be ledgers is David Cameron.

This treasurer is then arrested and ultimately sent to prison with an extremely high bail running into many millions which he almost certainly cannot pay. He can expect to wait months, perhaps years to come to trial on matters not related directly to "The Guardian" story. He is suspected of major tax fraud of his own.

Some months after "The Guardian" runs its story, "The Telegraph" runs a similar story. Its editor speaks to this treasurer just prior to his going into prison and publishes the contents of this interview along with copies of ledgers of allegedly illegal payments, including those to David Cameron when he held a more junior post in the Conservative Party.

The use of "The Guardian" and "The Telegraph" in this hypothetical situation is relevant to what has happened in Spain. One is a newspaper which leans to the left, one is a paper which leans to the right. Political sympathies do not, however, prevent "The Telegraph" from taking forward what "The Guardian" had initiated some months before.

For "The Guardian" and "The Telegraph", read "El País" and "El Mundo". For the unnamed treasurer in the hypothetical story, read Luis Bárcenas. For David Cameron, read Mariano Rajoy. The hypothetical is not hypothetical. It is reality.

But to continue with the hypothetical, what do you think would happen if the story in the British press was in fact true; that David Cameron's name had appeared in ledgers of allegedly illegal payments? Not just in "The Guardian", which might be considered less sympathetic to Cameron, but also in "The Telegraph", which could be considered to be generally sympathetic. Two major reports, some months apart, revealing the same type of information.

One thing is for certain. The matter would be a massive scandal. It would be all over the media. It would be the only matter which mattered. Presumptions of innocence of course, but could Cameron stay in his position? Or would he feel compelled to step down or be forced to step down?

It is impossible to say for certain, because this is only an hypothesis, but one would think that he would resign. His position would surely become untenable, so great would be the clamour, so massive would be the coverage.

There again, maybe he wouldn't resign, because the Conservative Party categorically denies that these separate ledgers form part of its accounting. It denies that it has ever paid "bonuses" or monthly salaries without complying with tax requirements. It implies (more than implies) that these ledgers are made up. It threatens to sue "The Guardian" for the original story, sue any other part of the media which repeats the accusations and sue the treasurer as well, and he, the treasurer, initially denies that he is in fact the author of the ledgers. When "The Telegraph" in essence repeats the original allegations, what can the party do but continue to deny that the ledgers are false?

But people - the public, other politicians and the media - would be highly suspicious. Firstly "The Guardian", now "The Telegraph". And one question that many would ask is why someone would go to such lengths to produce supposedly fabricated accounts which, as writing experts suggest (the accounts are handwritten), have entries that indicate they were made not at one go but over a long period of time.

However, some analysts are not convinced that this is a clear-cut case. For starters, there is the fact that the treasurer is facing a fraud charge of his own, that it is widely thought that he feels that he has been hung out to dry by the party. What he has to say could of course be accurate, but is there some element of revenge at play? It's hard to say, but one keeps coming back to why someone would keep supposedly false accounts for such a long period of time, ones which suggest two decades of illegal payments.

But, but ... Ever more buts and what-ifs. What if "The Telegraph" has an agenda. It doesn't agree with Cameron on everything. It reflects divisions within the party. It may be sympathetic to opposing voices within the party. Who can tell? And why has it chosen to sit on its interview with the treasurer for a few weeks? Indeed, how is it that it spoke to him? What he had to say to the paper and what the paper has published could well be dynamite, but the treasurer has spoken to a newspaper. Not to a judge. Can Cameron be condemned on the basis of a newspaper's findings alone?

All the above reflects how the story has played out and is being played out through the two Spanish newspapers. A judge may now get involved. "El Mundo" has presented its findings to the Audiencia Nacional, a special high court. It would have to consider if the ledgers are true and that they show, in the case of payments allegedly made to Rajoy when he was a minister in the Aznar government, that they contravene a law of 1995 which expressly forbid additional payments to members of a government, be these payments public or private.

Rajoy, one imagines, would not step down. He didn't when "El País" first broke the story, and the latest revelations don't fundamentally move the story on, except in the sense that they are revelations. Supposedly. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ledgergate II: The Bomb That Went Off

Mariano Rajoy is not a charismatic rogue like Silvio Berlusconi. He is not a charismatic, regular-guy chameleon like Tony Blair. He is an uncharismatic, uncommunicative grey beard, of whom it is hard to believe that he is anything other than an honest broker or that he might willingly have been in receipt of what allegedly amounted to over 320,000 euros over eleven years, money noted in the "B" accounts held by the former treasurer of the Partido Popular, Luis Bárcenas.

"El País" devoted six pages on Sunday to a full publication of the Bárcenas ledgers, the day after Rajoy spoke at a hastily-convened meeting of the Partido Popular's national executive committee and denied everything. Rajoy, as is his wont, refused to take questions. One suspects that he so rarely engages directly with the media or takes questions, because he doesn't want to put his foot in it, but in being quiet, he succeeds in arousing only suspicion and a lack of sympathy.

As the number of people who have signed an online petition demanding Rajoy's resignation hurtles towards the one million mark, it is clear that sympathy is in short supply. Not just a lack of sympathy. Lack of confidence, too. A poll indicates that 85% of the electorate do not trust Rajoy. The only crumb of comfort he can take is from the fact that 89% of the electorate don't trust the leader of the opposition, who has, unsurprisingly, also called for Rajoy to resign.

The reaction is understandable. The Bárcenas papers appear to have Rajoy bang to rights. You would expect him to deny everything, expect him to hope that support he enjoys from Frau Merkel and some sign of growth, if not this year then next, will put all the current embarrassment into the shade. But the latter hope is distant and possibly illusory, while support for the Partido Popular has nosedived. Its poll rating is now more or less the same as that for PSOE, bereft of ideas and personality but suddenly thrown a lifeline, thanks to the secret ledgers. The PP can't afford to wait for the Godot of minimal growth; there is a God-awful mess stinking the party out that needs cleaning up right now.

My initial reaction to the ledgers was that they were explosive but was also questioning. Were they authentic? There now seems little doubt that they are, in that they are Bárcenas's work, and nor is there much doubt that they have been known about for quite some considerable time. The PP had thought they would not see the light of day, but they now have.

Rajoy describes the ledgers as false, a view shared by party grandees, some of whom want legal proceedings to be started against Bárcenas. But if the ledgers are false, why did Bárcenas go to such elaborate lengths in inventing them? Why has at least one of the entries, that of a loan to the president of the Senate, Pio García Escudero, been verified? As far as this is concerned, the internal investigation that the party has launched rejects the idea that this loan was part of the so-called "B" ledgers but was part of the "A" ledgers, the official accounts.

This may be a reasonable and acceptable explanation as far as one particular item is concerned, but there are plenty of other explanations that need making and which Rajoy avoided on Saturday. One, offered by the party's vice-secretary-general, Esteban González Pons, is that the ledgers were written at one sitting, thus implying some form of invention.

But the party's explanations on their own are not sufficient. There needs to be a full and independent investigation, as the ledgers, with their implications of black money, of funding from construction companies and others that exceeded legal limits and which may have been made to smooth the way to contracts, of connections to ongoing corruption investigations, are too serious not to be subject to such an investigation.

The PP government is introducing a law on transparency, directed in particular at political party funding, one that has been criticised for being far too opaque. If it is true to its word of transparency, then it has to be prepared to be investigated. Nothing else will satisfy.

Bárcenas was treasury manager for 18 years, then succeeded Álvaro Lapuerta as treasurer in 2008, at a time when he was already considered to be a ticking bomb because he knew so much. As soon as he was implicated in the "caso Gürtel" corruption scandal the following year, he became even more of a bomb ready to go off. The bomb has now gone off. But was the explosive genuinely live?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ledgergate: The PP and the secret accounts

There are moments when events take a sudden and unexpected twist and which threaten to shake institutions to the extent that they come crashing down. The publication by "El País" of handwritten ledgers showing payments to prominent Partido Popular politicians over several years may just be one such moment. The ledgers, supposedly kept by two former treasurers of the party, one of them Luis Bárcenas, suggest that secret payments were made to the current prime minister Mariano Rajoy and Rodrigo Rato, variously the former head of the IMF, a former minister for finance, the ex-number two to José María Aznar and the one-time president of Bankia. He was cited last year by the Spanish Supreme Court, indicted in connection with the management of Bankia. The ledgers also show payments to the current secretary-general of the PP, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, and payments to someone whose initials are J.M.

Cospedal has rejected any suggestion that these ledgers amount to a set of secret accounts. She maintains that the party's accounts are clean and transparent. Bárcenas, under investigation for alleged illegal payments and kickbacks, has issued a statement making a similar rejection. Both he and the party are considering legal proceedings.

It is not just who was apparently receiving payments, it was also who was making them. There are construction companies, such as FCC, and other businesses, one of them seemingly Mercadona, the retailer's spokespeople having previously denied that donations have ever been made to the PP. There are also individuals linked to the ongoing corruption investigation, "caso Gürtel", to which Bárcenas is well and truly also linked and which opened up the separate investigation into him and the money he had stashed away in a Swiss bank account.

Then there are other types of payments, ones not directly to individuals but for clothing. For example, in 2008 there were 11,020 euros for "suits M.R.".

A point to be made about donations to political parties is that until 2007 anonymous donations could be made, so long as they were declared in tax statements. As such, therefore, payments may not have been illegal. However, there would appear to be a discrepancy between total amounts raised as donations and the amount that was transferred to a bank account for such donations. And it would also appear that payments have been made since 2007, including those to Cospedal who only figures in the ledgers for the first time in 2008.

Donations may, therefore, have been legal, but the fact that they were coming from builders, among others, and were being made during the period of the construction boom has led to hints of impropriety.

But then, the party is denying that donations were passed to party leaders. It is denying the existence of the ledgers. So what are the documents that "El País" has published? The paper is unequivocal in stating that they are authentic.

Rajoy has avoided making any statement, preferring to wait for the results of audits into the party's finances that he has ordered as a consequence of the Bárcenas affair. But if, as the ledgers suggest, he was receiving an annual payment of 25,200 euros over a period of eleven years, he must surely have known about them? If, that is, they were ever made.

In a previous article, I intimated that Bárcenas might know where the bodies were buried. He is apparently angry that he has been more or less hung out to dry and has been let down by the party's leadership. He also, it would seem, knows what nine boxes, said to reveal secrets about the party's finances, contain. He was the one who removed them from the party's headquarters.

There are all sorts of questions that need answering. What conclusion, if any, do we draw from the fact that there appear not to be any "alternative" ledgers since the time that Bárcenas was forced to step down from his post as treasurer in 2009? Where have the documents that "El País" has published come from? Or from whom? Are they false, a hoax? Because if they are real, then the ledgers are more than a simple embarrassment. The Bárcenas affair has threatened to explode, and it may now have done, and with the explosion could come an implosion. As a correspondent of mine has remarked about the ledgers: "these are dynamite".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Biter Bit: The PP and corruption

The national government of the Partido Popular is trying its hardest not to appear to be squirming, but squirming is what it should be doing. Members of this government, such as the man in charge of finance, Cristóbal Montoro, and the party's general secretary, María Dolores de Cospedal, had been to the fore in attacking the Catalonian president, Artur Mas, over allegations that he had money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. These allegations were contained in a report that apparently emanated from police sources, yet the report was one that not even the national interior ministry was aware of. They are allegations that were seemingly without foundation, yet the PP hierarchy, sensing a means of discrediting Mas, latched onto them. They now find themselves with an accusation uncomfortably closer to home - one of secret Swiss bank accounts in the name of former party treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. It is more than an accusation. As part of the ongoing corruption investigation known as "caso Gürtel" (all about kickbacks for contracts), a court has revealed that Bárcenas had an account with as much as 22 million euros in it.

This is only part of the story. When Bárcenas first came under suspicion, the money was moved from the account. At that time, leading figures in the party, including the now prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, were proclaiming Bárcenas' innocence. These leading figures are now attempting to distance themselves from Bárcenas by arguing that he is no longer the party treasurer and is indeed no longer a member of the PP, prompting one source to say that the affair has nothing to do with the PP because of Bárcenas' non-membership.

However, things are rather murkier. "El Mundo" has alleged that Bárcenas was responsible for arranging for illegal payments to members of the party and that these payments were made during the time that José María Aznar was prime minister and have been made during Rajoy's time as leader. In addition, Bárcenas declared only 10 million euros as part of the amnesty that the current government set up under which only 10% of the value of the undeclared assets had to be paid. The government has denied that the amnesty was instigated partly as a way of smoothing the Bárcenas question.

A further problem for the PP hierarchy is the fact that Bárcenas, although no longer a member of the party, remains close to it. So close indeed that he still has has an office at the party's Madrid headquarters and a secretary paid for by the party. Even more of a worry for the PP is that Bárcenas knows where bodies are buried. The affair threatens to become highly damaging to the PP and the current government.

It is not acceptable for the party to wash its hands of the affair by pointing to the fact that Bárcenas is an ex-party member. It is very much a matter for the PP, as, apart from any personal gain that Bárcenas may or may not have benefited from, there is also the question of party funding. He was, after all, the party's treasurer, and the wholly unsatisfactory system of political party funding is once more coming under the spotlight. The lack of transparency and the absence of mechanisms to force parties to declare sources of income conspire to raise suspicions as to what these sources are.

It should be noted that several corruption charges in Mallorca relate to political party funding, most notably that of the former Unió Mallorquina, but also of the PP. That these charges may be historical, in that they date back a few years, do nothing to allay suspicions that corruption, far from being a thing of the past, is still very much alive, despite protestations by both national government and the Balearics regional government that they are getting to grips with it. And against this background, there is now the astonishing decision by President Bauzá's government in the Balearics to modify a law passed just prior to it taking office in 2011 which requires a certain amount of transparency. Modification does not mean tightening but loosening the requirements. It is a staggering decision, one justified on grounds of current "socioeconomic circumstances", whatever they are supposed to be. The opposition allege it is all a manoeuvre to cover Bauzá's business affairs.

The public in Mallorca and in Spain are being asked to make huge sacrifices, but what do they see by way of return? Nothing. No improvements. No jobs. No money. Nothing. Only more cases of corruption. And lack of transparency. The public has had enough. The political system is shot through with corruption. Who will rid us of these turbulent politicians? That's the scary part.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.