Less than three months after the regional and municipal elections, any case of corruption can do a lot of damage. Even though the party proceeds as quickly as possible to suspend the deputy involved from membership and withdraw his seat until before the scandal is made public. This is what has happened with the ‘Mediator case’, an alleged corruption plot that seemed destined to be reduced to the Canary Islands, until it has taken over political news.
How does the case start?
According to the orders issued by the Court of Instruction number 4 of Santa Cruz of Tenerife, the case began as a result of the complaint filed last month by the director of Sports of the Island Council of Tenerife, Angel Luis Perez Penafor an alleged unauthorized expense in their 2,750 euro cards. The mediator Marcos Antonio Navarro He declared that they were consented payments and that Pérez was trying to hide it from his wife. The complaint was filed, but access to their phones uncovered the plot. In audio tapes, Navarro can be heard bragging about being able to have an issue dealt with in plenary session of the Senate and he even goes so far as to say that his “real function is to advise two ministers, two.”
According to the investigators, public officials and officials contacted businessmen whom they convinced that in exchange for money or gifts they would use their influence to benefit them. In the “vertex of the network” the prosecution places the former deputy of the PSOE Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, alias ‘Tito Berni‘; his nephew, general director of Livestock of Canary Islands, Taishet Fuentes Gutierrezand the Division General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navaswho is the only one who is in prison.
How long did the plot operate?
The investigations place the origin of the plot at the end of 2020 and its end, in the first half of 2021, when the dozen businessmen who had paid to have their problems solved saw that it was not happening. They were farmers and cheese makers from the Canary Islands, pending subsidies or licences, and later entrepreneurs from the peninsula.
First they had to make a payment of 5,000 euros to the Tetir Sports Association, by Fuentes Curbelo, and take care of the expenses of dinners, hotels and prostitutes. The businessmen were taken to the Cortes or to the General Directorate of Livestock of the Canary Islands or to the General Command of the Civil Guard “to give an appearance of seriousness and power to the criminal plot and to generate confidence in the businessmen.”
The ringleader of the political plot
The main socialist leader involved in the cause is Jose Bernardo Fuentes Curbeloaccused by bribery, documentary falsification, money laundering, influence peddling and belonging to a criminal organization. It is considered that ‘Tito Berni’ was the ringleader of the political plot. The PSOE leadership forced him to resign from his seat on February 14, as soon as the first information on this case was known. The organization of the dinners with the businessmen from whom the network had asked for bribes was largely the responsibility of Fuentes Curbelo. According to the summary, it was about “parties” with “alcohol, cocaine, prostitutes and Viagra.”
At the moment, there is no other socialist deputy involved, although Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte, who allegedly acted as a link between the political and business sides of this corrupt network, has indicated that there was a dinner attended by 15 parliamentarians from the party. The address of the PSOE has asked all the participants in that appointment for explanations. Although they rule out that the case splashes more deputies, in the socialist leadership they emphasize that if there were, they would act with the same “forcefulness” as with Fuentes Curbelo, who has also been suspended from militancy.
The effects at the polls
The corruption scandal comes at a very delicate moment for the PSOE: at the gates of the regional and municipal elections on May 28. The compromising photos of Fuentes Curbelo during one of those “parties” also damages the abolitionist discourse of prostitution that the party upholds and they make the atmosphere even more rarefied in the face of 8-M, already tense due to the reductions in sentences for sexual offenders and the clash with United We Can over the reform of the ‘only yes is yes’ law.
The Socialists admit that the ‘Mediator case’ can weigh down their options to maintain the Government of the Canary Islands, something that until now was taken almost for granted. In the rest of the territories the concern is less, but they agree that corruption ends up splashing “everyone”, because it casts doubt on the party’s own acronyms. Even so, the official version, both in the PSOE and in Moncloa, is that the “determination” with which Fuentes Curbelo has acted prevents further wear and tear.
The strategy of the PP
The match of Alberto Núñez Feijóo has decided to charge everything against the PSOE. This Wednesday called for a commission of inquiry in Congress, that it is not ruled out that it will succeed if other smaller groups join. Feijóo demanded the day before that the Socialists give “explanations” for the scandal instead of trying to “cover it up.” But the toughest has been the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, which has come to point out, without any proof, the possible participation of Pedro Sánchez in the plot. “I hope Sánchez has a way to prove that he was never in Tito Berni’s business,” said Ayuso, who believes that the case “will bring down this government.”
The Chief Executive replied shortly after. “We stop corruption, we do not cover it up“, said. The PSOE’s response to the PP is based here on the supposed “double yardstick” of the popular. The Socialists remember three recent cases that affect the ranks of their main adversary.
That of the mayoress of Marbella, Angeles Munoz, that she will run for re-election, and maintains her act as senator, despite the fact that her high net worth is being investigated by the Upper House since her husband and stepson have been prosecuted for drug trafficking and money laundering. the one of Vincent Mari, President of the Consell d’Eivissa. Charged with prevarication, influence peddling and coercion, Marí shared a table with Feijóo last Sunday, during a public event. and the one of Jorge Fernandez Diaz, former Minister of the Interior, who continues to hold the PP card after the Prosecutor’s Office requested 15 years in prison for him for allegedly spying on former treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
