We have come this far, said a PSOE advisor in Torremolinos on June 8. That day he reported to the provincial leadership of the PSOE in Malaga that he had been suffering from alleged sexual harassment for four years. from … Antonio Navarronone other than the secretary general of the formation of this municipality on the Costa del Sol which has nearly 75,000 inhabitants. His party suspended his membership after the Malaga prosecutor’s office for violence against women opened an investigation in early December after analyzing dozens of messages.sexual content, innuendo and propositions “unwanted or consented” that this advisor sent to his partner in the municipal group.
The PSOE of Málaga made a judgment after knowing in detail how its local leader spent his money thanks to WhatsApp comments provided by the complainant, and transmitted this “hot potato” to Ferraz’s device. By chance, a month later, the “bomb” of the Paco Salazar affair exploded, the close collaborator of President Pedro Sánchez, called to relieve the resigning man. Santos Cerdan and that he had to resign from the Secretariat of the Organization last July when it was revealed that he had abused his power to mistreat workers at La Moncloa. As a firewall, the new federal executive has put in place a confidential channel for complaints against alleged harassers within their party. The reality is that after five months, he has done nothing about these complaints from women.
The concerned councilor of Torremolinos attests to the passivity of this “independent body” created by the PSOE. “Even me I was not aware and I am not aware today of what this organization did“, he admits during a telephone conversation with ABC. The last time she heard from her was on July 15, when members of the new victims’ support organization held a telematic meeting with the complainant. Since then, “I have no longer had contact” with them, testifies this activist, who does not even know the names of his members.
Conversation with María Jesús Montero
The complainant makes a distinction between the actions of the PSOE and the inaction of its internal anti-harassment chain. “My party has provided the means and made it easier for women to declare that they feel safe. But of course, when it reaches an independent party body that it stretches times and doesn’t perform the function it was created for, then something is failing“Times are passing,” he laments. This was stated recently in Malaga by the general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE and deputy general secretary of the Federal Executive, María Jesús Montero. “We spoke in exactly the same terms” in which she expressed herself publicly, she explains. “Something as humiliating as the known problems require greater speed,” declared the first vice-president of the government on December 4, when questioned by journalists about this affair.
A few hours earlier, the Federal Executive Commission of the PSOE had suspended Navarro from activism and announced the opening of a disciplinary case after the public prosecutor’s office opened proceedings against him. “I totally agree with her (Montero), I say her words 100% and I have nothing more to add“, declares the person concerned, who prefers to keep the details of his conversation with the minister to himself.
“I went to the prosecution to protect myself. “Antonio Navarro had some aggressive ones and that scared me,” he says.
Within your party, The matter was vox populi even before the advisor warned in June to the provincial apparatus. On November 10, he formalized his complaint with the public prosecutor’s office. At the Provincial Congress of the PSOE in Malaga, which inaugurated Maria Jesus Montero On March 30, this issue had already been the subject of comments from some delegates who elected Josele Aguilar as secretary general. “It was a joke,” he admits, later adding that if the anti-harassment organization had resolved his case sooner, “maybe It wouldn’t have exploded like that.“.
The question that remains unanswered is inevitable: did he report to the prosecution why he believed that the PSOE was not acting? “No. I went to the prosecution to protect myself. One party cannot protect a victim, no one can.. “Only a judge can do that,” she responds insistently after reiterating that she felt “supported” by the training in which she is active even if the internal organ did not function with the diligence she expected.
“I know how to relieve your headache” or “I want to give you a card,” writes Antonio Navarro to his harassed colleague.
The “crush” allegedly inflicted by Antonio Navarro led the victim to change her habits to “avoid coinciding” with the accused who, at the end of 2021, put pressure on her to try to have sex with her. To achieve his goal, he bombarded her with messages like “I want to sign you up”, “Have you always had this cleavage?”, “What can I do to win you back?” or “I know how to relieve your headache.”
The counselor admits that she feared for her physical integrity and that for this reason she requested the protection of the Justice system. “This person (Navarro) He had moments of aggression and it scares me“, he said. She doesn’t want to talk about the relationship the two might have before 2021 because it would “distract attention” from what’s important, which is victims like her. “Everything that happens in a situation of consent between two adults is part of their lives, I have nothing to say about that. What I reported is what occurred in a context of non-consent. This culture of consent is what I think Antonio Navarro has not yet understood,” he warns. He points out that other women who have worked with him have confessed that “they saw themselves reflected in WhatsApp and their guts turned inside out» while reading them.
No one thought it would go this far, including the alleged harasser. While she had already been denounced to the PSOE, the former leader of Torremolinos contacted her one last time to ask her ask him to take a photo of himself with another group of people where he was. This happened last October 19, on the occasion of “the day of the pink march (against breast cancer), which governs the ovaries”, he remembers. “I refused. And even less so a day when the protagonists must be women.
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