When US President Ulysses S. Grant was arrested in 1872 for speeding his horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Washington, the arresting policeman confessed that he was sorry because Grant was the leader of the nation and he a simple policeman, but “duty is duty”. Ours, that we are neither police officers nor judges, but custodians of citizens’ right to information and a counter-power tool of civil society, is to scrutinize the governance of public affairs to make any possible misuse of power known, illegality or damage to the patrimony of all. This is the essential function attributed to journalists by the Constitutions of liberal democracies.
In the course of this task, just a decade ago we published a series of information that revealed how the cost of the Escombreras desalination plant had skyrocketed by four and that the Florentino Pérez business group was demanding payment of up to 600 million euros from the Community for the lease of the plant. The information from Manuel Buitrago and Ricardo Fernández was the thread of a skein that was pulled to unravel a ruinous project that had been orchestrated by the regional government of Valcárcel, apparently outside the supervision mechanisms of the regional Administration itself and with disastrous consequences for public coffers.
It would not take long for the opening of a commission of investigation in the Regional Assembly and a judicial summary, which led to the opening of an oral trial against the once omnimodous Ramón Luis Valcárcel. Eleven and a half years in prison is the prosecutor’s request for three alleged crimes of embezzlement, fraud and prevarication, plus 47 years of disqualification for public office. At the moment he is facing an embargo of his assets if he does not satisfy a bail of 74 million euros, a serious setback for who until Friday was honorary president of the Murcian PP and that in view of the aggravated traffic jam in the courts will probably not be tried for a couple of years, like many other citizens for various circumstances. Like them, he will have the right to a fair trial and a presumption of innocence that will remain intact until there is a court ruling.
Varcárcel’s prosecution is much more than a personal setback. It is a political issue of the first order that seriously damages his party, already touched by the conviction of Pedro Antonio Sánchez. On the political level, it gives the opposition a solid argument to project the idea that corruption is systemic in the PP, a party that eight months ago praised Valcárcel at the Teatro Circo on the occasion of a visit by Feijóo to Murcia. We will see if this happens in the coming weeks, with the PSOE investigating its candidate for the alleged crime of trespass.
Regardless of the use and the partisan readings, we find ourselves, once again, before another reputational damage for the whole of a Region that in a few years could see two of its former presidents behind bars for crimes of corruption. The fact that the events in question occurred more than a decade and a half ago does not diminish the problem, since whoever is going to be tried was president for 19 years and the underutilized Escombreras desalination plant continues to cost Murcian taxpayers more than 40 million a year.
The positive part of this story is that democracy is strengthened because it is proven that we are all equal before the law and there is no impunity for crimes of corruption. Personally, I do not wish Valcárcel any misfortune, but he congratulates me that the judges, prosecutors and journalists of this newspaper have fulfilled his duty. That of the former Murcian president will be accountable to Justice when he touches him.
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