Santiago de Compostela, December 12 (EFE).- The speaker of the PP in the Galician Parliament, Alberto Pazos, has accused this Friday the secretary general of the PSdeG, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, and his number two, Lara Méndez, of maintaining “almost three full days of absolute silence” on the complaints of several women to José Tomé for alleged sexual harassment.
As it was said in a press conference, his party is “awaiting” the statements that Gómez Besteiro plans to make this afternoon after a meeting with the party executive in Galicia, and has warned him that he should be “very convincing” after ensuring that both he and his “deputy have been completely absent and silent since Tuesday evening.”
“And this despite the information we have received from the media, which suggests that the socialist leadership in Galicia was fully aware of the complaints (…), but did not prompt them to take the necessary measures and, as we learned today, even tried to negotiate with those affected in order to withdraw the allegations,” Pazos explained.
The ABC newspaper publishes this Friday information according to which the organizing secretary of the PSdeG, Lara Méndez, “tried to persuade one of Tomé’s complainants” not to come forward.
The socialist leader demanded a correction and announced “a complaint of insult” against the Madrid newspaper, as the PSdeG also announced this Friday.
Ask Pontón if he was aware of these problems.
The leader of the Galician PP assured that “in this mess” another person also plays a “main role,” he said, alluding to the national spokesperson of the BNG, Ana Pontón, whom he accused of trying to “get away scot-free” and “evade responsibility,” since her party is “the great ally of the PSOE in Galicia and companion of the Tomé government in the Lugo Provincial Council.”
For this reason, he called on the nationalist leader to stop “fussing” and ordered her to “stay away from anything related to Tomé” and not to participate in a provincial government where support for “an alleged sexual harasser” is “essential.”
This Friday, Pontón demanded that Tomé give up all his responsibilities and release all his minutes, both in the provincial council and in Monforte, where he is mayor, and criticized the PP for its actions following the complaint of sexual assault against the then councilor Alfonso Villares, which was “fired with applause,” he said.
Referring to the Tomé case and the Villares case – speaker of the PP in the Galician Parliament – he said that there are “more than essential differences”, since in one case a person denounced another for actions “in the purely personal and private sphere” and in the other case there is talk of “harassment in the area of public institutions”.
Calls for condemnation of Tomé’s actions by feminist groups
In his intervention to the media, Pazos also missed any condemnation by feminist groups of the events attributed to Tomé. EFE
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