Friday, April 21, 2023, 5:10 p.m.
Saber rattling within the Oriolano PP. This Friday an open judicial investigation against his candidate for mayor, Pepe Vegara, for two alleged crimes against the public Treasury came to light and, in this way, what should have been his mass bath prior to the start of the campaign ended up lackluster . In addition, according to popular sources, everything would point in one direction: friendly fire. This is how the candidate himself dropped it at his entrance in the act of presenting his candidacy when he was questioned in case it was feared that after this news there would be a smear campaign. “White and bottled, usually milk,” he replied without a trace of hesitation.
Vegara, even so, tried to publicly express his tranquility in the face of the open judicial process, although without hiding his deep astonishment. “It is surprising that certain things come out at this time,” the candidate abounded, well known in Orihuela and of good fame until he entered the electoral race for his role at the head of the Association of Moors and Christians. Also linked to the business world, his family has been behind the management of an ITV station in Vega Baja. Now, an alleged fraud in the payment of Corporate Tax and VAT in this company and in another company, Orikoffee SL., would be behind this judicial investigation.
Two important fronts for which the Prosecutor’s Office, according to information advanced by ‘El Plural’, requests four years in prison for Vegara, with a fine that would exceed 4,500,000 euros for the crime against the Treasury for tax fraud of companies; and three years in prison, with a fine of more than 600,000 euros, for VAT fraud.
«In 2011 we had a complaint from the Treasury and the last news I have is that in 2015 the case had been filed. If they now recover it or reopen it, I don’t know. But the last news that I had of this is that the case was filed, “he recounted. “In addition, in 2011 I spent the whole year without going to the company because I had heart surgery,” he added.
Summoned as an investigated, he clarified that at the moment no oral trial has been opened and he expressed his hope that this will not happen. “I don’t think it will open.” The opening of the oral trial would be a step against which, in theory, there would be no turning back with the statutes of the PP in hand. “We are talking about an administrative issue, outside of politics and from more than 12 years ago. I think that the explanations that (Vegara) has given are adequate”, the president of the Valencian PP and popular candidate for the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, downplayed the matter.
The also president of the Provincial Council of Alicante, who this Friday went together with the general secretary of the party, Cuca Gamarra, to cover Vegara, threw balls out on the matter and launched a ‘and you more’ against the PSOE. «The one who has to explain is Ximo Puig, who in Vega Baja has a mayor convicted of his management, such as Benferri and two other defendants in Los Montesinos and Benejúzar. This does have to do with politics and not with an administrative matter,” he said, referring to the case of the popular candidate from Oriolan.
The act in which Vegara has been supported by a large part of the party in the region and the province had the presence of Cuca Gamarra confirmed from the beginning. A strong weight to which the vice president and deputy of the Water Cycle of the Alicante Provincial Council, Ana Serna, was going to add. However, at the last minute, and as a gesture of support, it was decided from the party that Mazón was there to stand up for a candidate that he promoted from minute one in which the replacement in the Oriolan popular group was raised.
Not surprisingly, the Orihuela PP faced a difficult second stretch last year marked by the traumatic exit from one of its fiefdoms, since Orihuela has been governed by the popular without interruption since 1995, except for a brief period of tripartite government led by The Greens between 2011 and 2015. Thus, the motion of no confidence promoted by PSOE, Ciudadanos and Cambiemos opened a deep gap that reissued the already historic rivalry between the recently evicted mayor, Emilio Bascuñana, and popular councilor Dámaso Aparicio.
The decision of the regional executive of Mazón was then to opt for a Solomonic decision. Neither for one nor for the other. The future of the party was going to fall on an ‘a priori’ face without backpacks, trustworthy and who had not yet dared to make the leap into politics: Pepe Vegara. In the act of this Friday in the Montepinar urbanization, the candidate was supported by practically the entire current municipal group in the absence of councilors Víctor Bernabéu and Dámaso Aparicio.
It is not yet known what the party lists will be, accustomed to not closing fringes until the last minute, already before the Electoral Board counter. Although it is almost taken for granted that, if there is a face of the current team that will survive, it will be that of Víctor Valverde, who has been hand in hand with Vegara preparing his candidacy from the beginning. The continuity of the rest of the current municipal group is today in question.
The rest of the political groups with a presence in the Oriolan City Hall were anxiously awaiting the statements of the popular candidate and awaited his step aside in coherence with what the popular municipal group has been asking in recent days for the Ciudadanos councilor Ángel Noguera, recently dismissed by the mayoress as mayor of Infrastructures and investigated for two alleged crimes of embezzlement.
This investigation is also a resounding blow to the waterline of the popular campaign, just a few days after the official closing of the lists. Until this Friday the PP envisioned good electoral prospects. With a tailwind after the latest crises faced by the current PSOE-Cs municipal government team on account of the crisis in the insurance of the City Council’s vehicle fleet, the approval of the file for the Cala Mosca urbanization and the recent accusations of two councilors of Citizens.
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