A woman, a socialist activist in the province of Malaga, has filed a legal complaint against the Secretary General of the Socialist Workers Party of Torremolinos, Antonio Navarro, for the crime of sexual harassment, attached to a series of letters containing sexual innuendos and proposals allegedly sent to her by the provincial deputy and councilor in the city council.
The complaint was referred to the Violence Against Women Section of the Malaga Public Prosecutor’s Office, which will investigate the case, and the PSOE’s regional leadership issued a statement declaring that “the reported facts are being examined and investigated by the anti-harassment body appointed by the party’s federal executive.” “If the Prosecutor General’s Office opens the proceedings, this regional direction will submit a request to the Federal Executive Committee for the precautionary suspension of hostilities in accordance with our statute and regulations,” the letter said.
Torremolinos is a municipality of about 71,000 inhabitants on the Costa del Sol. The city’s mayor’s office changed from the Socialist Workers’ Party to the People’s Party in the last municipal elections. The socialist activist attached to her complaint WhatsApp messages from Navarro dating back to 2021, conversations about municipal policy issues, including sexual comments by the deputy, according to Sour newspaper.
Some of Navarro’s messages published by the newspaper are as follows: “Don’t avoid me, I want to attack you.” “I know how to take your headache away”; “How comfortable we would be now with a glass of wine and a sofa”; “You’re so good”; “Have you always had this neckline?”; “Even if you wear a turtleneck, you’ll be just as hot.” The woman presented the full conversations she had with the leader of the Socialist Workers Party in Torremolinos, where he insisted on these sexual comments, while trying to return again and again to talk about municipal affairs.
The Andalusian Socialist Workers’ Party of Spain has seen this controversy arise amid the scandal of sexual harassment accusations against Francisco Salazar, the party’s former secretary for analysis and electoral action who until recently was a trusted person of President Pedro Sánchez. Complaints from several women who worked with Salazar, revealed by elDiario.es, caused him to fall from the federal commission that was to promote him to the position of deputy secretariat of the organization.
Two more women then registered new complaints against the former senior Moncloa official through the party’s internal anti-harassment channel. The leadership of the Federal Socialist Workers’ Party did not deal with these complaints for five months, until this newspaper published them publicly and the party muttered a series of arguments to explain that they had disappeared from the system, that Salazar had just resigned from the struggle, and that, therefore, they considered that the internal investigation had never begun to be concluded. 48 hours later, after the information was published by elDiario.es and in the face of discontent from many unions, the PSOE reopened the investigation and is considering whether to also submit the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Before his promotion to Secretary General of the Socialist Workers Party of Torremolinos, Antonio Navarro was the organization’s secretary for five years, a city councilor since 2019 and a regional deputy since July 2023. The socialist activist, who preferred to maintain anonymity in front of the media to avoid retaliation, also accused him of touching her buttocks without her permission, a scene for which she rebuked him directly, warning her that she would inform the party leadership if she insisted on this. Attitude.
Navarro sent about 50 messages to his cell phone in less than five hours to apologize. But a few days later, he returned to sexual comments: “When you get angry, you become very beautiful.” “I’ll shave if I make a mistake”; “I would now like to put you on the defensive,” the socialist leader wrote, commenting that the victim had described her in her letter as “intimidating, insulting and humiliating,” and stressed that this had “seriously” affected her safety at work. “It was unbearable pressure,” he concludes.