The Socialist Party is in civil war. Although the situation is not new, following the internal renewal processes that took place at the beginning of the year, after the celebration of the 41st Federal Congress, it is true that several leaders are taking advantage of the crisis to denounce complaints of sexual and workplace harassment within the PSOE. … For settle accounts with each other. The battle is of such scale, sources at the territorial level of the Socialists explain, that there is a “real risk” of rupture in several federations, where “the knives fly aimlessly”.
At the PSdeG, with three complaints for sexual and workplace harassment, this is where the situation is more critical. A few months ago, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, who a year and a half ago had obtained the worst historical result of the PSOE in the regional elections, was re-elected secretary general with the sponsorship of Pedro Sánchez. But Besteiro doesn’t have the support of nearly half the organization. The PSdeG, which has changed leaders three times in a decade, suffers from an exchange of accusations and complaints between leaders as a tool for debt recovery.
In the Galician federation it all started with a complaint against the president of the Provincial Council of Lugo, provincial secretary of the party and mayor of Monforte de Lemos, José Tomé. After this first victim, other cases were filed against this leader, very close to Besteiro and the deputy secretary general, Lara Méndez, and a few days later another complaint was disclosed, in this case for harassment at work, against the mayor of Barbadás. The changes of versions and the lies of the main leaders of the PSdeG, as well as the seriousness of the events, caused the angry complaint from several senior officials like the mayor of La Coruña, Inés Rey.
It was following their public demonstrations, questioning the possibility of Besteiro and Méndez continuing to lead the PSdeG, that two former municipal councilors of La Coruña denounced a alleged workplace harassment by Reyone of the rising women of the PSOE. The mayor’s entourage emphasizes that this complaint is linked to the “retaliations” of the entourage of the regional management, which “did not take responsibility for its mismanagement nor for the manifesto signed by more than 250 officials and members in support of Silvia Fraga”, the former head of Equality who resigned due to disagreements with Gómez Besteiro and Lara Méndez.
Rey’s position is surprising given his position in recent years, being one of the mayors closest to Pedro Sánchez. Even if she denies having aspirations beyond A Coruña, even if her name has been heard on different occasions in Galicia and Madrid, sources close to Besteiro believe that “what he does, he does it to happen to him“. In recent days, several regional heavyweights have admitted in public and private that the party’s secretary general and his number two should abandon their responsibilities at the head of the organization.
Tough messages to Valencia
In the Valencian Community, Diana Morant’s management also took advantage of a first union anti-fraud complaint and a subsequent internal complaint for sexual harassment against the mayor of Almusafes, Toni González, to resolve outstanding issues. González, right-hand man of Morant’s rival in the primaries, Carlos Fernández Bielsa, is, with him, one of the few to benefit from a comfortable absolute majority in the region. And the strength of both, despite the fact that their organic power is concentrated only in the province of Valencia, worries the secretary general interviewed.
After the sexual harassment complaint that forced Toni González to abandon all her functions within the party, at the request of Morant herself, members close to each other engaged in a dialectical warfare through messaging groups fast. Racy messages, as ABC has learned, which in some cases border on crime. For the moment, as this newspaper reported this Thursday, the PSPV is keeping the accused at the town hall, but with a climate of internal tension which, according to different sources, “is not bearable”.
Knives fly in Madrid
Knives are also flying in Madrid, both regionally and federally. All this following the complaint against Paco Salazar, former advisor to Sánchez, and the accusations against the former member of the management Javier Izquierdo. In this case, there are even ministers who, in view of the succession of Pedro Sánchez, are taking advantage of the leaks to report to senior government officials, a witch hunt directed from Moncloa and in which people like the Secretary of State for Communication, Lydia del Canto, also participate. Some leaders accuse leaders close to Sánchez of covering up for Salazar, while those same leaders denounce their colleagues who allegedly went to the media to “air dirty laundry.”
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