The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, urged former Minister José Luis Albalos to give up his membership in Congress, and considered it “inappropriate” that he wanted to “take cover” behind her. “If he has any political decency, what he should do is abandon this act,” he noted, while ensuring that the government “has no fear” of the former leader’s information.
As he explained, “until now we believed” that the former secretary of the organization of the Socialist Workers’ Party and Minister of Transport had kept the record “to protect himself judicially,” but at this moment, “once he was already in prison and on trial by the Supreme Court,” he demanded that the record be left behind.
“People vote, they trust their politicians, and Mr. Abalos has disappointed the trust of socialist voters in the Valencian community and does not deserve to continue in his position as deputy,” he said in statements to the media after visiting La Fe Hospital in Valencia on Friday.
This came one day after Supreme Court Judge Leopoldo Puente agreed to send the former minister and his former advisor Koldo Garcia to temporary detention without bail ahead of the trial to be held against him on charges of alleged irregularities in the mask contracts awarded by the transport company during the pandemic. This is the first time that a national MP has gone to prison.
Asked whether she feared that José Luis Abalos would continue to “publish information that is harmful to the government or President Pedro Sánchez,” Morant considered it “possible” that this was the “intention” of the former minister, but stressed that in the executive branch they have “no fear”: “No fear and no respect for justice.”
As a government and PSOE “we did what we had to do”
He stressed: “We as a government did what we had to do, and also as a party, we condemn any illegal behavior,” while noting that Abalos “is subject to justice, not the Spanish government and not, of course, President” Sanchez.
Therefore, he noted that “the word ‘Abalos’ or whatever he wants to say, he must say before the court.” “It gives me more of a feeling that Mr. Abalos and Mr. Koldo Garcia also had behaviors that recorded their conversations, in short, like Mr. Aldama. I think they will play into a judicial strategy to try to be the scapegoat,” he noted.
But he believes that “there is no longer room for this large number of scapegoats” because they are “the ones who committed these alleged violations.” He stressed: “We are talking about three scoundrels who exploited the trust of a century-old party, which is not consistent with the values that we see in these people.”
At this point, he defended that when the training became aware of “evidence in the form of reports” they made “the strongest decisions, namely decisions to expel” the SWP. For this same reason, he asked Ábalos as his “deputy” because the former minister “occupies a position that corresponds to the socialist voters of the Valencian Community, thus robbing them of their political capacity.”
“No credibility” for Abalos
On the other hand, when asked whether Begonia Gomez, the wife of the Prime Minister, had intervened in the rescue of Air Europa, as Abalos confirmed, the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities stressed that she did not give “any credibility to a person who is now imprisoned and who, of course, will be brought to justice for what he did.”
Furthermore, he urged the former minister to stop “trying to spread potential offenses to the rest of us like fans.” He added, “He and the other two characters – Koldo and Aldama – these three scoundrels will have to be brought to justice because their positions and what they did do not respond neither to the rule of law nor to what is expected of a politician.”
In fact, he emphasized that the three are “the opposite of the government, the Socialist Party, and an honest and blameless president” like Pedro Sánchez, with a “clean” CEO, people who are dedicated, for example, to investing in science, developing the economy, ensuring low unemployment rates and more people working than ever before in the history of our country: “We are a good government and we do not feel that these people represent us.”
“He has failed the trust placed in him by the party.”
However, he admitted that Abalos was the PSOE’s “number two”, but insisted that the former minister had “disappointed the trust the party placed in him” and said: “These things can happen because they are humanitarian issues. I don’t understand, I don’t share them, but there are people who take advantage of the positions of power they are in.”
However, he appreciated that the SWP “apologized and forgave the public for trusting these people” and stressed that “the ones who now have to stand up to justice are these people at the individual level.” He added: “It has nothing to do with the Socialist Party, for those who want to raise this matter and say that this is the ‘Gurtel’ of the Socialist Workers’ Party.”
“I do not receive envelopes or any member of the government.”
He continued: “No, sorry, the Gortel case meant the first and only conviction of a political party in this country, such as the Party of the People, which was and still is the People’s Party, that distributed the envelopes. Justice was never able to find out who Mr. Rajoy was, but the envelopes were distributed to Mr. Rajoy and other ministers.”
He settled on the following: “I do not receive envelopes nor does any member of the Government, nor does any member of the Socialist Party. We do not go to a headquarters paid for with B money as the People’s Party does in Genova. Therefore, this is not about the Socialist Workers’ Party, it is limited to people who have abused the trust of the Socialist Party, but who will, at the individual level, have to be brought to justice for their activity, of course, allegedly illicit, illegal and criminal.”