The shadow of internal corruption haunts the PP of Castilla y León in the process of the still uncertain investiture of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. The acting president has opened a judicial front in Salamanca, which evaluates whether there was “illegal financing” of the PP in its 2017 primary elections by depositing money in the bank to pay unpaid militant fees. The party collected more than 60,000 euros from public positions to finance debts of members so that they could vote for Mañueco, then mayor of Salamanca, in the internal process to elect a candidate for the Board. Mañueco swept through his province and came out the winner, ultimately becoming regional leader. The judge has charged the PP as a legal person, the provincial president of the formation, Javier Iglesias, who refused to testify in full pre-campaign, and the party manager, Isabel Sánchez, summoned to testify as being investigated this Thursday. The objective is to clarify the origin of 24,140 euros that the magistrate appreciates “without justifying” and that the PP tries to explain with affidavits such as those of Mañueco himself, who admitted having contributed 1,000 euros of his assets to help pay off militants’ debts. .
The trickle of information about the case has been falling on the PP during the electoral period. A few weeks ago it was confirmed that the Prosecutor’s Office has brought the PP before the Court of Accounts for hiding said contributions in its 2017 primary process. The acting president and leader of the PP in Castilla y León insists on “full respect for justice ” when asked about this case. Those primary elections were won by Mañueco over the then mayor of León, Antonio Silván, now a senator, by achieving 67% of the votes. The support was massive in Salamanca, with 97% of the votes, and majority in Zamora, Segovia, Burgos or Ávila. Only 13.31% of the affiliates spoke out, 6,047 out of a total of 51,191 registered at the time. Of those 6,047 votes, 1,212 votes came from the Charra province.
The judge has appreciated “rational indications” of a possible crime of illegal financing, typified since 2015, since of the 62,000 euros collected there are 24,140 euros “without justification” to pay membership fees, which would mean an “illegal anonymous donation”.
Among the receipts investigated are two bank receipts for President Mañueco, for 600 and 300 euros, drawn on February 20 and 27, 2017. It was not known until at least 10 days after these bank transactions that former President Juan Vicente Herrera (who presided over the Popular Party in Castilla y León between 2001 and 2019) would resign from re-election and that Mañueco would aspire to relieve him.
Iglesias, provincial president of the formation, affirmed that Herrera’s decision not to appear again, made public on March 9, 2017, “caught them by surprise.” The prosecutor does not understand that the Salamanca PP began the process to update the fees of members with late payments before that date.
In addition to the extracts from Mañueco, between 27 and 30 economic contributions and “another 39 affidavits” are investigated. In total, they add up to 17,350 euros of the 61,937.65 that the manager has recognized as amortized sum. The organic law on the financing of parties, of 2015, establishes that contributions, individual or accumulated, of more than 25,000 euros must be audited by the Court of Auditors. This rule, approved during the presidency of Mariano Rajoy, also prohibits finalist contributions, in this case destined according to the PP to cover the membership fees.
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According to the representative of the public ministry, the president of the Salamanca PP presented “in a disorderly manner, without any criteria and with absolute negligence, bank documents containing cashier withdrawals from various dates, with which he intends to justify the contributions of other people to pay installments ”.
The PP deputy José Antonio Bermúdez de Castro, elected by Salamanca, acknowledged having given 1,000 euros “in cash” from his “personal assets” with the “exclusive purpose of paying dues from members of the PP of Salamanca to facilitate their participation in said internal electoral procedure”, as stated in an affidavit included in the summary of the case.
Bermúdez de Castro was a rapporteur for the organic party financing law, which requires that contributions not be in cash, to prevent black money laundering, but rather “by direct debit.”
The private accusation, which is exercised by the popular association Los Verdes Salamanca, considers that, by allocating all the money to Salamanca, the formation violated the principle of equality because it exclusively helped voters favorable to Mañueco to the detriment of Silván.
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