Got a Little Grease for my Palm?
Money is very tempting, no matter who you are. And if you are in a job where you handle both power and money, you are likely to fall. As do many politicians in Spain. Every other day we hear of a new "operation" against corruption either nationally, or regionally. There are names that have a whole charge of meaning behind them; Filesa, Rumasa, Banesto, Roldán, GAL, Naseiro, Gescartera, Malaya, Gürtel, Nóos, ERE's falsos, Campeón, Pokémon, Nueva Rumarsa, Bárcenas, Bankia, Tarjetas Black, Púnica, and dozens of others that have been closed, remain open, or have just been opened. And all of them since the Transition and Constitution in 1978. No wonder some of the older people pine for Franco and say there was no corruption back then. There was, it just wasn't allowed to be made public, and now no one wants to turn over a pile of dung to let the smell out.
All of the major national and regional political parties have been implicated at one point or another. The latest is Convergència i Unió in Catalunya. A few weeks before regional elections next Sunday that this party wants to make into a referendum on independence, a judge ordered a search of their headquarters and took many documents. I forget what they're accused of now, but it most likely has to do with abuse of power and probably embezzlement, money laundering, and the like. They all are, mostly. There are some other charges, usually, but the most used are those. Even the King's brother-in-law has been involved in one, the Caso Nóos. This case is actually an off-shoot of another case called Palma-Arena. Iñaki Urdangarín is accused of embezzlement, perverting the course of justice, falsification, and money laundering. Iñaki's wife and sister to the King, Cristina de Borbón, has also been accused of tax fraud in this case and has been called in for questioning by the judge and will face a trial.
I remember a famous case a few years after arriving here. It involved the Director of the Guardia Civil, Luís Roldán. He was the son of a cab driver with a master's degree in engineering who had risen through the ranks of the Socialist Party to become the first civilian Director of the Civil Guard, and was famed for being tough on ETA, the scourge of the Basque Country and Spain in the 1980's. He worked on reinforcing the casas cuartel, where the Civil Guards lived and worked, and which had long been an objective of the terrorist group. He picked out the construction companies that were supposed to do the work and got a cut in the proceedings. He signed a contract with a firearms manufacturer which actually made defective guns and had to have the contract discontinued. From that he got a nice sum. He also dipped his hand into the reserve budget of his department, used for emergencies only. In the end, he waltzed away to Bangkok in 1994 with well over two billion pesetas of public money (over fifteen million euros if I've done my calculations correctly). A year later he was found and came back to face the music. He got over thirty years in jail, which he served at a woman's penitentiary because he would have been lynched in a regular men's prison. But, after only ten years, he was let out of jail to find a job. I think he had to sleep in jail for a while, but he's out now on parole. He's now seventy years old and is living in the humble apartment he inherited from his parents, in Zaragoza, with his third wife. And, of course, he is receiving two monthly pensions from the government, one for four hundred euros, and the other, six hundred. The larger pension is for having served in the Ministry of the Interior before being Director of the Civil Guard. He has also signed book contracts and has given interviews, and not for free. And most of the money he made off with has never been found. So much for just punishments.
He was more of a shyster than was assumed, though. It turned out that not only did he embezzle and commit fraud, etc., but he never even finished college, let alone get a master's degree. Yet he had the "papers" to prove it. Shades of Lazarillo de Tormes and other picaresque novels, so Spanish.
This year alone, around 1700 cases of corruption have been opened, from the famous national or regional cases that make all the headlines, to the local cases involving a mayor or some other small civil servant. That has led to over five hundred civil servants of all types being investigated. Of all those, only twenty have been formally charged and convicted and have actually set foot in a prison. Almost every political party that has an elected official has been involved in one case or another. In every autonomous region of Spain there has been at least one case, if only on a local level. Is it any surprise that Spanish voters no longer have any faith in the system or in their politicians?
And yet, Spain is not the most corrupt country in Europe and even less in the world. From 1 to 175, 1 being the least corrupt and 175 the most, Spain ranks 37. Tied at 69 are Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, and Romania. The least corrupt country in the world is Denmark; the most corrupt are North Korea and Somalia. This is data from 2014. But, of course, the perception of the level of corruption depends on where you live. And Spaniards are tired and ashamed of the headlines that come out every few days. Most feel that the rest of Europe is laughing at them.
There are new political parties that have come into being lately. Their biggest outcry is against corruption. Let's see, once some have gotten into power, how fast they succumb. Because, sooner or later, they will. It has become the nature of the beast called politics.
All of the major national and regional political parties have been implicated at one point or another. The latest is Convergència i Unió in Catalunya. A few weeks before regional elections next Sunday that this party wants to make into a referendum on independence, a judge ordered a search of their headquarters and took many documents. I forget what they're accused of now, but it most likely has to do with abuse of power and probably embezzlement, money laundering, and the like. They all are, mostly. There are some other charges, usually, but the most used are those. Even the King's brother-in-law has been involved in one, the Caso Nóos. This case is actually an off-shoot of another case called Palma-Arena. Iñaki Urdangarín is accused of embezzlement, perverting the course of justice, falsification, and money laundering. Iñaki's wife and sister to the King, Cristina de Borbón, has also been accused of tax fraud in this case and has been called in for questioning by the judge and will face a trial.
I remember a famous case a few years after arriving here. It involved the Director of the Guardia Civil, Luís Roldán. He was the son of a cab driver with a master's degree in engineering who had risen through the ranks of the Socialist Party to become the first civilian Director of the Civil Guard, and was famed for being tough on ETA, the scourge of the Basque Country and Spain in the 1980's. He worked on reinforcing the casas cuartel, where the Civil Guards lived and worked, and which had long been an objective of the terrorist group. He picked out the construction companies that were supposed to do the work and got a cut in the proceedings. He signed a contract with a firearms manufacturer which actually made defective guns and had to have the contract discontinued. From that he got a nice sum. He also dipped his hand into the reserve budget of his department, used for emergencies only. In the end, he waltzed away to Bangkok in 1994 with well over two billion pesetas of public money (over fifteen million euros if I've done my calculations correctly). A year later he was found and came back to face the music. He got over thirty years in jail, which he served at a woman's penitentiary because he would have been lynched in a regular men's prison. But, after only ten years, he was let out of jail to find a job. I think he had to sleep in jail for a while, but he's out now on parole. He's now seventy years old and is living in the humble apartment he inherited from his parents, in Zaragoza, with his third wife. And, of course, he is receiving two monthly pensions from the government, one for four hundred euros, and the other, six hundred. The larger pension is for having served in the Ministry of the Interior before being Director of the Civil Guard. He has also signed book contracts and has given interviews, and not for free. And most of the money he made off with has never been found. So much for just punishments.
He was more of a shyster than was assumed, though. It turned out that not only did he embezzle and commit fraud, etc., but he never even finished college, let alone get a master's degree. Yet he had the "papers" to prove it. Shades of Lazarillo de Tormes and other picaresque novels, so Spanish.
This year alone, around 1700 cases of corruption have been opened, from the famous national or regional cases that make all the headlines, to the local cases involving a mayor or some other small civil servant. That has led to over five hundred civil servants of all types being investigated. Of all those, only twenty have been formally charged and convicted and have actually set foot in a prison. Almost every political party that has an elected official has been involved in one case or another. In every autonomous region of Spain there has been at least one case, if only on a local level. Is it any surprise that Spanish voters no longer have any faith in the system or in their politicians?
And yet, Spain is not the most corrupt country in Europe and even less in the world. From 1 to 175, 1 being the least corrupt and 175 the most, Spain ranks 37. Tied at 69 are Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, and Romania. The least corrupt country in the world is Denmark; the most corrupt are North Korea and Somalia. This is data from 2014. But, of course, the perception of the level of corruption depends on where you live. And Spaniards are tired and ashamed of the headlines that come out every few days. Most feel that the rest of Europe is laughing at them.
There are new political parties that have come into being lately. Their biggest outcry is against corruption. Let's see, once some have gotten into power, how fast they succumb. Because, sooner or later, they will. It has become the nature of the beast called politics.
It is everywhere. Sadly. What is so wrong about being honest?
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