Errejón and the women

Hello,

On Thursday night, an email arrived at [email protected], the mailbox we use so that anyone can pass compromised information to the editorial office (here we explain how it works). It was a young woman. One of the many who had a relationship with Íñigo Errejón and who this week, after the resignation of Sumar’s spokesperson, are coming out to tell what they experienced, what they suffered, what they have long preferred to forget.

One of our journalists, the deputy director of the Society section, Natalia Chientaroli, spoke with her that same night. Through other sources and evidence, the next day, he was able to corroborate that what he told us was true. And to his testimony he has added the voice of different experts who analyze what is behind it: what type of damage such a relationship causes to a person. How this woman ended up agreeing to practices that she did not want to do and that caused an enormous personal tear in her. We have omitted all the gruesome details – unnecessary to understand what happened. But the pattern of this testimony and of many others that we are learning these days is always similar. Women fascinated by a famous politician, who is assumed to be sensitive, an intelligent speaker, someone with an enormous capacity for seduction. A person who uses that power to – in the words of the women who point out to him today – “dominate” and “humiliate” those people, without the slightest empathy.

“I have reached the limit of contradiction between the character and the person,” Íñigo Errejón wrote this Thursday, in a letter where something basic was missing: asking for forgiveness. But the contradiction is evident: the same politician who put the necessary debate on mental health at the center was far from taking care of the mental health of his partners. The same leader who declared himself a feminist is today pending a complaint with the Police, accused of sexual assault.

That complaint has already reached Court 47 in Madrid. The case will be handled by Judge Adolfo Carretero, a rather controversial judge – he is the same one who charged Dani Mateo with a joke where he blew his nose at the Spanish flag, or the one who most recently handled the case of the mask commission agents. of the Madrid City Council. And it will be there where Errejón will have the opportunity to defend himself. Until now, beyond the letter he sent on social networks, he has not wanted to make any further statements.

“It is horrifying and devastating,” says Mónica García, the current leader of the party that Iñigo Errejón founded, Más Madrid. Which adds something important: “We have not known how to do enough.”

A year ago, shortly before the general election campaign, a woman on social networks anonymously denounced Errejón. She accused him of non-consensual touching during a concert in Castellón, at a feminist festival. And in the Twitter thread where she explained what happened, she also said that a “friend of Errejón”, Loreto Arenillas, called her to act as a “mediator” to “remedy the situation.”

Shortly after, the anonymous girl deleted her social media account. Loreto Arenillas, in addition to being a deputy, was the spokesperson for Mujer de Más Madrid. A few hours ago, the party forced his resignation.

All kinds of rumors about Iñigo Errejón have been circulating in Madrid for a long time. And about many other politicians. Concrete data, enough to publish? There weren’t any. Unlike what happened this week, we didn’t have any women willing to talk. To no one who wanted to tell, in first person, what we do know today. A year ago, when this anonymous girl reported these touches at a concert in Castellón, at elDiario.es we tried to locate her and corroborate the veracity of that accusation. We couldn’t talk to her.

This week, we published an investigation about one of the founders of Ecologistas en Acción, Santiago Martín Barajas, who is accused in court of sexual assault. In addition to that complaint, our colleague Ana Requena spoke with two other women who suffered very uncomfortable episodes with this same accused. It is obvious, but it is worth remembering: at elDiario.es we do not publish rumors: only those that we can prove to be true.

But let’s go back to Errejón. And what this blow means for the image of Sumar – a coalition that is very affected, and that already accumulated numerous previous problems, as the polls prove.

For many politicians, the testimonies of the different women recounting the behavior of Sumar’s former spokesperson and this lack of empathy with them has not been a surprise. Something that they separate from the complaint of the actress Elisa Mouliaá, which no one in her party expected.

“The first time I heard about a rumor about Errejón was because a friend told me that she had had a shady incident. It was in 2017, being leader of Podemos and taking advantage of that situation,” explains a leader of Unidas Podemos. “They all knew about Errejón. Another thing is that they had no evidence, although some – those closest to Errejón – surely did.”

In just a few days, the coalition government has received two blows in two very sensitive points. Feminism, with the Errejón scandal. And also the fight against corruption, with the indictment of former minister José Luis Ábalos in the Supreme Court.

Both have been separated, it is true. One has handed in his deputy’s certificate and left politics altogether. The other is still in the mixed group, to protect himself as a member. In both cases, the same question arises. Why now and not before? To what extent did they know in their games everything that we know about them today?

I’ll leave it here for today. I hope you have a good weekend. Thank you for your support of elDiario.es

A hug,

Ignacio School

#Errejón #women