Everything was going according to plan. A session with political scuffles, taunts, parliamentary attacks. Until the final minute arrived. The commission of inquiry into the Koldo case, promoted by the PP in the Senate – the third on the same issue, along with that of the Congress and that of the Balearic Parliament -, summoned for this Friday the third authority of the State, the socialist Francina Armengol, president of the Congress. Thus, 48 hours before the European elections on Sunday, Armengol has appeared, called by the PP, to explain her actions as president of the Government of the Balearic Islands during the pandemic. Among other contracts, the islands’ Executive purchased masks worth 3.7 million euros from a company linked to the former advisor to the Ministry of Transport Koldo García, accused of collecting illegal commissions. All this was settled this Friday in the Senate. And yet…
At the end of the commission, Armengol took the floor after a scuffle with a PP senator and blurted out: “This way of doing politics, of lying, of destroying the political adversary using anything, of discrediting the institutions Neither citizens nor democracy deserve it. And my greatest wish is that on Sunday many people participate in the elections and make it clear that this is not the way to do politics.” The president of the investigation commission, the popular Eloy Suárez, visibly upset, immediately activated his microphone and turned towards the person appearing:
—What he has done seems absolutely disgraceful to me!
And he continued: “It seems unbelievable that you, being president of an institution, have done what you have just done. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, we take note and we will see if it has any consequences. “It seems unpresentable to me!” The socialist deputies have risen. The popular ones, too. It is then that the president of the commission, now away from the microphones, approached Armengol again. “I’m going to say goodbye out of decorum, but it seems unpresentable to me. “We are going to take this to the Electoral Board,” he commented to a group of senators. And he has reiterated it to the president of Congress herself.
PP senators have begun to reproach the socialists, who had previously applauded Armengol’s latest intervention. Minutes later and still with a certain commotion in the atmosphere, the former Balearic president left without making any statements to the media.
📺 LIVE TV | Armengol ends his appearance in the Senate on the masks by asking for a vote for this Sunday and the president of the commission, Eloy Suárez, makes his gesture ugly: “What you have done here today is unpresentable.” https://t.co/tLeKBgV9oa pic.twitter.com/iVvWxRrDxb
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) June 7, 2024
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The session lasted two and a half hours. After the questions from Vox, PSOE and ERC, the turn of the PP has arrived, which has monopolized all the limelight. Senator Javier Santamaría has come with a supermarket bag full of papers. “He accuses us of mud and I have brought a supermarket bag with press clippings so that he can see and consult them,” he warned. The stack of papers was enormous. First question: “When the PSOE talks about mud, we would like to shed light on the corruption that affects the PSOE, which now affects the wife of the President of the Government. I want to ask you: Did Begoña Gómez not send a letter of recommendation to her Government? Armengol has said “never” and has stressed: “I do not share this way of doing politics.”
The then president of the Balearic Islands has said that she met Koldo García through José Luis Ábalos, the then Minister of Transport. The PP senator asked if he had a direct relationship with Ábalos’ former advisor, and gave an example: “If I have a direct relationship with Taylor Swift, I remember perfectly. There are certain people who, for better or worse, mark you.” Armengol said: “It’s normal that he remembers Taylor Swift. [A Koldo] I knew him. “I have never hidden it.”
The former regional president has insisted that no member of the Government that she presided over is being investigated. “We will collaborate with justice and, if someone has been corrupted, let the full weight fall,” she stated. She has denied that she had private contracts with Koldo and that she met him in her office. “This contract [en referencia al que aparece en el caso Koldo de 3,7 millones de euros y es una compra de mascarillas] It’s well done. It is supervised by the anti-corruption office. You have made a previous conviction. I hate this way of doing politics,” he cried again.
The 3.7 million contract was the subject of a claim from the Armengol Government itself three years after awarding it, because the masks that arrived were not suitable for hospital use, which was what was included in the contract, but only for home use. The regional Executive kept the masks in a warehouse — to have them available “as stocks”Armengol said—and, at the same time, he demanded that the company return part of the money. That claim was inherited by the new Government of the Balearic Islands, from the PP, whom the socialists now accuse of having let it expire. The popular ones reply that this procedure was defective and that they have launched another to claim all the money and have the contract considered void.
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