A couple of phrases by Alberto Núñez Feijóo during a radio interview this Tuesday have distorted the PP’s strategy in the face of the scandal over the alleged sexual assaults committed by Sumar’s former spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón. Those from Feijóo opted for a discreet profile, aware that a case of harassment could break out in their own ranks. And so it happened with the senator and mayor of Algeciras, José Ignacio Landaluce, as the protagonist. After Feijóo’s words, the PP ran aground in a chain of contradictions and half-explanations. The national management pointed to the Andalusian as responsible for the management, but internal protocols indicate that Genoa is in charge of investigating.
“We know that this can happen,” Feijóo said on esRadio at around nine in the morning. It was the leader of the PP himself who, in response to a question about the Errejón scandal, mentioned an “investigation” into a possible case of harassment and assault referring to the senator and mayor of Algeciras (Cádiz), José Ignacio Landaluce. “No one puts their hand in the fire for anyone,” added the opposition leader. This Tuesday, Landaluce did not attend the Senate Plenary Session.
The case does not arise from the complaint of the supposedly affected councilors, but from the leak of some WhatsApp screenshots briefly published by Alvise Pérez on his Telegram channel. Shortly after, the messages disappeared. Feijóo reported that after “a reference came out” to Landaluce “we automatically spoke to him and this matter was clarified.” “Any type of complaint that there is about my party we have to investigate,” he said. But Feijóo’s words had the opposite effect to what was intended. The national leadership assured journalists that the management of the “complaint”, in Feijóo’s words, depended on the Andalusian PP of Juan Manuel Moreno.
Throughout Monday morning, the state leadership of the party referred the management to the PP of Andalusia led by Moreno. The Andalusian Government tried to limit the case to the provincial leadership of the PP of Cádiz. The parliamentary spokesperson, Miguel Tellado, assured that the investigation was open, while the secretary general, Cuca Gamarra, closed it. Everything almost at the same time.
A secret protocol that concerns Genoa
“The PP in Andalusia is working to learn first-hand about the facts, despite the fact that there is no complaint in this case, neither public nor private,” Tellado said in a press conference in Congress in which he said that the investigation was continuing. open. “The internal (and secret) protocol on harassment was immediately activated, “as it could not be otherwise,” said Gamarra minutes later, who settled: “Those two women were asked, the management of the PP in Andalusia, in Cádiz, to know the truthfulness and so that they could explain themselves.”
But the protocol to which Gamarra refers does not leave the resolution of this type of conflict to the regional directorates, much less to the provincial or local ones. It is the national leadership that must investigate and resolve. The responsibility, according to the document, lies with Génova, 13. This is stated in the document, advanced by El Periódico and to which elDiario.es has had access. Because the protocol is not public, but it is available to all PP workers on the organization’s intranet.
The latest version of the PP’s “Workplace Harassment Prevention Protocol” is from May 2023, a year after Feijóo arrived at the party’s leadership. In this framework, the document establishes as “sexual harassment (…) any verbal, non-verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, particularly when an environment is created intimidating, degrading, humiliating and offensive.”
The text continues: “The employment nature is presumed when it occurs within the scope of the organization of the entity, as well as when the conduct is related to the conditions of employment, training or promotion of work.”
Regarding the procedure, the protocol ensures that “it is initiated by a complaint from the alleged victim of harassment (or by the Subject Person who, not being a victim of harassment, witnesses it).” Said complaint will be directed “to the director of the Human Resources Department or to the OCN through the Ethical Channel.” The OCN is the Regulatory Compliance Office of the PP, a national department whose function is precisely to ensure good compliance with laws at the internal level. The Ethical Channel is a complaints channel that is also managed in Génova, 13.
The protocol establishes that “the OCN, together with the HR director, must adopt the necessary measures to ensure the veracity” of the complaint. An Investigative Committee will be formed, preferably made up of the person responsible for HR and two others from the OCN.
A fleeting complaint and a half-hearted denial
On Monday afternoon some unknowns were cleared up. Despite what Cuca Gamarra said, there is nothing to indicate that the anti-harassment protocol has actually been activated. ElDiario.es attempted, without success, a clear confirmation about which channel had been used for the internal investigation.
The fleeting publication of the Se Acabó la Fiesta MEP showed several screenshots of WhatsApp conversations in which two councilors from Algeciras comment on some alleged attitudes of the city’s mayor, José Antonio Landaluce. One of them recounts at a certain point that when they were sitting at a table with other people “he put his hand under the table,” something that, according to the story, the others perceived.
In two letters sent to journalists from the Andalusian PP in the middle of the afternoon, both said they denied “the accusations spread”, although neither of them denies that the screenshots are real.
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