PP and PSOE exchange threats to summon Sánchez and Feijóo to the investigative commissions

Neither PSOE nor PP want to reveal their plans beforehand – and, above all, who they intend to summon – in the respective investigative commissions of the Congress and the Senate related to contracts and commissions during the pandemic, so as not to give clues to the political rival. But his intentions are clear: to undermine the leaders of the opposing party. The first commission formally started this Monday in the Senate, promoted by the PP to focus on controversial cases that could affect the central government and the PSOE, but the popular ones keep some of the major pieces that they want to pass off as a drink, although They target above all against the president, Pedro Sánchez, they do not rule out summoning his wife, Begoña Gómez, and also the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, the third authority of the State. The Congressional commission promoted in response by the PSOE will be formed this Tuesday with the objective placed, especially, on the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and on the head of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for his time at the head of the Xunta de Galicia.

The two major parties have put so many of their assets in these two commissions for this period of electoral confrontation that is approaching this spring, with three campaigns and elections in just 50 days, that even for the mere formal constitution of the investigative commission of the called Koldo case In the Senate there were great expectations of a political fray. The session, however, barely lasted 10 minutes, the length of time it took to form the table that will direct its operations in the coming months. The appointed president, popular senator Eloy Suárez, called them again for this Wednesday, after the plenary session, to set a calendar to deliver proposals for those appearing. Something similar will happen this Tuesday in Congress, with the commission that the PSOE and its allies want to extend to more controversial and irregular cases of purchases and alleged bites of medical supplies in all administrations during covid-19.

PP and PSOE will thus keep to themselves, as long as possible and looking at each other out of the corner of their eye, the type of list of requests they want to demand to call both commissions. Formally and publicly, both parties maintain that they seek to draw conclusions from the aspects that went wrong in the emergency and exceptional hiring that took place in those dramatic weeks of the pandemic. But politically they want and will use these debates to undermine the rival.

The only thing that the PP wanted to confirm this Monday was that it will call Francina Armengol in the Senate in one of the first summonses. She will do so based on suspicions of her alleged connivance in the Koldo plot, for which she is not under investigation by the courts. The PP alleges that the Government of the Balearic Islands, when she chaired it, contracted with the companies involved in the case. Armengol, “today she is not free from any suspicion,” defended the PP spokesperson, Borja Sémper.

It won't be the only one. The PP aims for the top of the Government and the PSOE. The popular ones open the door to calling the president, Pedro Sánchez, and do not rule out doing so with his wife, Begoña Gómez, despite the internal reluctance in the PP caused by the statement of the president's wife, who is not being investigated. As in the case of Armengol, the PP targets Sánchez on the assumption that he knew about the activity of the corrupt plot. “Sometimes it is easy to join the dotted line,” argued Sémper. “If Mr. Ábalos was an important member of the PSOE and the Government, if Pedro Sánchez's relationship was extraordinarily close with Ábalos, if Koldo walked through the ministries with unusual audacity, if Koldo called presidents of Autonomous Communities and they got …it seems reasonable to conclude that it was materially impossible for Pedro Sánchez not to know. Pedro Sánchez knew it. And Mr. Pedro Sánchez will have to give answers,” warned the popular leader.

The internal debate in the PP is about whether or not to summon the president's wife. Important leaders are reluctant to call Gómez because they consider that it implies crossing a Rubicon with the relatives of politicians, taking into account that there is currently no judicial investigation into his possible link with the rescue of Air Europa, as accused by the PP. Other popular parties consider, however, that, given that the PSOE demands the resignation of Isabel Díaz Ayuso due to the alleged tax fraud of her partner – which is being investigated by the justice system -, they should not exclude the president's wife from this situation. Sources from the PP leader's cabinet do not rule out doing so, but the thesis they use is to wait to make that decision, looking in the rearview mirror at what the PSOE does in Congress and match their requests in an action-reaction maneuver.

The socialists, for their part, are going to focus on responding to these PP tactics in the Congressional commission, in which this Tuesday they will place deputy Alejandro Soler Mur as president and Juan Antonio González Gracia as spokesperson. The spokesperson for the Socialist Executive, Esther Peña, did not want to anticipate this Monday many details of the list of her appearances, but she did give more than just clues. His intention, Peña clarified, is that “thanks to the PSOE” all those who can contribute something to correct the failures that could have occurred in the worst of the pandemic pass through the Lower House “and that the scoundrels who sneaked into their “At this moment, the door will not be opened again no matter who falls.” She then pointed out, with some sarcasm, that perhaps there we could end up knowing who “the Alberto who appears in the summary” of the Koldo case, in reference to the opposition leader, although several sources from the PP itself indicate that it is Alberto Durán, the party's lawyer involved in that case.

The PSOE leader also pointed out: “The obvious and logical thing is that politicians and technicians from the Community of Madrid and the Xunta de Galicia come to the commission.” And she specified that she gave those two examples because it was in those autonomies “where the most scandalous cases of mask hiring occurred.” Peña then attacked Ayuso, from whom she demanded more explanations about her boyfriend's business or that Feijóo forces her to resign, because she maintained that while with her at the head of the Community, “healthcare was privatized with some companies, her partner “He made a living by contracting with those companies.”

_