The mask trial that has brought the former Minister of Transport and former Secretary of Organization of the Socialist Party, José Luís Ábalos, to the dock comes to an end today still with some questions yet to be resolved. The effects of this corruption case, which has hit the heart of the Socialist Government, are clearer.
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On one hand, it has eroded the discourse with which the PSOE came to power after the no-confidence motion against Mariano Rajoy in 2018, based on the fight against corruption. It has also fueled the political wear of the Executive and the President of the Government himself. The opposition has used it as ammunition to question their credibility, at a time of slim majorities in Congress.
The citizen knows more details about Ábalos’s life than about the main issue of the judicial case
Finally, and no less importantly, it has directly affected the PSOE, forcing it to establish a sanitary cordon and to distance itself from figures who were relevant within the party, which has ended up generating organic tensions with serious reputational damage.
The corruption scandal has not translated into a change of parliamentary majorities, despite the PP encouraging the PNV and Junts to break with Sánchez and present a no-confidence motion amid a climate of political tension that has electoral consequences. And if not, just ask María Jesús Montero who has started the campaign in Andalusia, while the Supreme Court was experiencing the last throes of the trial, coinciding with the statements of Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García, and the middleman Víctor de Aldama.
Over nearly a month of trial, ex-lovers, ex-friends, police officers, siblings, former directors of public companies, former chiefs of staff, and businessmen have appeared before the Supreme Court, aiming to shed light on the irregular purchase of masks during the COVID pandemic and the alleged enrichment of the three defendants in exchange for kickbacks and gifts in the awarding of these contracts.
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The sentence could be known before summer and then it will also be seen if the court accepts the statement of the middleman Víctor de Aldama, who after his agreement with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office gave a statement in which he fired indiscriminately without providing evidence.
However, the feeling that remains is that the public focus has shifted to secondary issues and that the citizen has ended up knowing more details about Ábalos’s personal life and his stormy “extramarital” relationship with Jéssica Rodríguez than about the main issue of the case. Even the former minister has admitted that they were doing ghosting.
Ábalos was right when, in his statement, he said he had become meme material. The trial has sometimes taken on tones more typical of a celebrity gossip show than of a corruption process.
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