Más Madrid has dismissed Loreto Arenillas, a member of the Madrid Assembly, this Friday after a long meeting of the executive to analyze the consequences of the resignation on Thursday of Íñigo Errejón, founder of the party. The group accuses its spokesperson on women’s issues of participating in the alleged cover-up of a case of harassment of Sumar’s former parliamentary spokesperson in June 2023.
“We appreciate that the explanations he gave then do not correspond to the reality that we have known during the last days and hours,” criticizes the training about Arenillas. For this reason, they point out, they demanded her resignation, which she has refused according to the story outlined in the statement. “Given his refusal, we announce the cessation of all his responsibilities and positions in the party,” the note states.
The party released a statement late this Friday after having canceled an event organized for this weekend due to the crisis opened by Errejón’s resignation. “Errejón had not been a public official of Más Madrid for a long time but it is evident that he is a person who has been an important part of the history of Más Madrid,” the statement states in one of its points. “It is evident that from Más Madrid we have not done things well,” the team acknowledges.
Minutes after the statement was published, Arenillas has accused the group of launching a campaign of lies against her and of not allowing her an explanation. “I have never covered up any act of harassment or sexist violence, on the contrary, I have worked to report these situations throughout my life, wherever I have been aware of it,” he wrote in a statement published on his networks.
Arenillas and Errejón have been friends for many years. And this is how it was presented, always according to the publication on social networks, to the Twitter user who reported the events. In those messages, the parliamentarian would have asked him not to make “public ridicule” of what happened, according to the trace of those publications that can still be consulted at Archive.org. “Later we discovered that ‘Loreto’ was x, a representative of Más Madrid,” added the complainant.
According to this anonymous complaint, the then deputy touched the Twitter user’s ass at the Tremenda Fem Fest festival. Although at that time this complaint did not have any political repercussions, the organization of the event did echo the complaint and regretted that “cishetero guys believe in the power to do whatever they want with our bodies and in our hearts.” spaces.” And they added: “Errejón Mano Culo Mal, this summer sneakers in your hands.”
“A year ago, deputy Loreto Arenillas learned of some events related to Errejón at a concert in Castellón for which a woman accused him of touching her ass,” says the Más Madrid statement. “On a personal basis, she began a mediation process with the affected women trying to clarify what happened,” her party explains about her actions. “Days later, after the party found out about the accusation through a Twitter thread, we contacted Loreto Arenillas and asked him to make the complaint mechanisms we have available to the victims, without receiving a response from them. Therefore, we closed the case,” the statement acknowledges.
“Today we are aware that it was a completely insufficient action and we assume responsibility for the consequences that this action may have had,” says Más Madrid.
“Mas Madrid was not aware of episodes similar to the one from a year ago or those that have been reported in recent days,” the party expands. “We have no complaints or specific testimonies, neither present nor past, but even so, we should have acted more forcefully,” they add.
In addition to the anonymous complaints, the actress Elisa Mouliaá has reported to the National Police a sexual assault for which she blames the former deputy. The reported events occurred at a party to which both of them attended together in September 2021 after meeting in person a few hours before, Mouliaá assures that Errejón grabbed her “strongly” by the arm and “forcibly carried her for about six meters, for a hallway, until it was introduced into the room,” according to the complaint, which this media has accessed.
“Once inside, the accused closed the door with a bolt so that she could not escape, beginning to kiss and touch the complainant on different parts of her body. […] Immediately afterwards he pushed her on the bed and the accused took out his virile member,” Mouliaá’s statement continues.
Errejón’s resignation has had an impact on Sumar and the rest of the parties in which he has played, such as Más Madrid. In fact, the party led by Mónica García has called off this Friday the Autumn Summit that they had scheduled for this weekend. “With what has happened in the last few hours we have a feeling of dismay and sadness that we believe forces us to postpone the Autumn Summit,” they announced on the event’s Telegram channel.
Arenillas took office in 2019 as a regional deputy, precisely replacing Errejón who left the Madrid Assembly to lead the Más País candidacy in the general elections held that same year. In this last legislature, the parliamentarian was present in the Women, Youth and Permanent Deputation commissions.
The continuity of Arenillas threatened to weaken the parliamentary group led in the Assembly by Manuela Bergerot. The spokesperson for Vox, Isabel Pérez Moñino, has announced that she would request the appearance of the former parliamentarian in the Women’s Commission. In that same intervention, he has attacked the “false moral superiority” that the left is “imposing.”
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