Política

There is a smell of pact —of non-aggression— in the courtroom of the National Court where the trial for Operation Kitchen is taking place, the alleged police plot launched in 2013 to steal incriminating information against the Popular Party from its former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. After the tense confrontation between former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and his former number two Francisco Martínez during the investigation phase —over some SMS messages that led to the former’s indictment— this Thursday an expert suggested manipulation of those incriminating messages without the former Secretary of State, who took them to a notary, refuting even the slightest shadow of doubt cast.

Ready for sentencing. The trial against the Pujol family ended at 13:49 this Thursday, after 38 sessions, in which more than 200 witnesses and experts appeared, and thirteen years, five months, and one day after the visit of Victoria Álvarez, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s ex-lover, to the Canillas police complex, accompanied by the so-called “patriotic police,” in which she explains that she saw with her own eyes how Pujol Ferrusola carried bags of cash to Andorra.

To be the leader of the PSOE, it is necessary to have the support of the membership in Andalusia and Catalonia. Due to their weight in members, they constitute the two key strongholds to control the party. As long as Salvador Illa holds the presidency of the Generalitat and has the absolute backing of the PSC, Sánchez will have that flank more than covered. But Andalusia has long been the most complicated and decisive territory in the party congresses. And that is where María Jesús Montero comes into play, the president of the Government’s go-to person.

“Were they killing her with tequilas?”. The first control session in the Assembly of Madrid after Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s eventful institutional trip to Mexico has resulted this Thursday in a cascade of ironies from the opposition about the supposed “extreme risk” that, according to the Madrid president, she faced during her stay in the Latin American country. The plenary thus staged the clash between an Ayuso determined to denounce an alleged political boycott orchestrated from La Moncloa and a left that has ridiculed a narrative it considers exaggerated, victimizing, and full of accusations without evidence.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will make a trip to Italy in the last week of May, which includes a meeting at the Vatican with Pope Leo XIV fourteen days before the visit that the Pontiff will make to Spain, according to the Agencia Efe and confirmed to La Vanguardia at Moncloa.

The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, advocates for Catalonia to free itself from complexes to become a hub of talent attraction in innovation and new technologies. From Palo Alto, a city integrated into the Californian Silicon Valley region, where Illa has met with leaders of local startups, the head of the Government has expressed the hope that Catalonia can “lead the next 10 years without asking anyone for permission.”

Half-hearted contrition for the infiltration of agents from the Mossos de Esquadra information police station in a teachers’ union assembly. Neither mea culpa nor chest beating. The interior minister, Núria Parlon, and the director general of the Police, Josep Lluís…

Our colleague Jaume V. Aroca, currently dispatched to cover the Andalusian elections, explains in his reports that on the street there is hardly any sign of a campaign. People continue with their own business, more focused on their daily tasks than on rallies, debates, or walks of…

“Let Moreno Bonilla tremble this Sunday!”, warned the socialist José Antonio Carranza, mayor of the town of Pulianas in Granada, where the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, held his penultimate rally of the Andalusian electoral campaign this Wednesday to support María Jesús Montero, before concluding his electoral tour for the 17-M next Friday in Seville.

It was foreseeable. For days now, the script of a campaign strictly regional in nature – from Andalusia and for Andalusia – initially designed by the team of the current president of the community and candidate to renew the position for the third time, has been changing course and increasingly approaching a battle of greater scope.