“I worked with Paco Salazar in Moncloa and what they say is true.” Thus began one of the complaints that was officially filed in the internal channel of the Socialist Party last July, days after ElDiario.es published the testimony of other women who worked under the orders of Pedro Sánchez’s former advisor and described “sexually harassing” behavior towards their subordinates in the party and the government.
In the letter, seen by this newspaper and which was forwarded to the Socialist Workers Party only to disappear from the internal channel five months later, the complainant describes the “unbreathable” working environment and asks her organization for help as she admits to fear. They never heard back from Ferraz, as they tried to postpone the operation with Salazar’s sudden loss of the fight.
“His behavior oozed misogyny and he drooled at every comment disguised as a joke. His language was hyper-sexualized even when he would say good morning. He would emerge from the bathroom in his office half dressed and not zip up so it was close to your face (because you were sitting and he was standing),” the PSOE activist who worked under Salazar until he resigned in the summer over public testimony from other women that he was exposed, wrote in her post. elDiario.es.
The worker in Moncloa registered her complaint on July 28, and says she decided to do so despite the “panic” of discovery, which led her to travel to another province outside Madrid, where she lives, and use a foreign computer so her communications would leave no trace. In her writings, she describes her daily life as an employee under Salazar.
“One day, in the middle of the office, he regulated the tongue in great detail without any connection. In private, he crossed other lines. I do not go into detail through this means of complaint because it does not convey to me the security that this will have no consequences. In short, because I am still afraid.” In fact, the complainant portrays Francisco Salazar as a man who boasts of the enormous power that being one of the most trusted persons in the Government gives him. As someone who had no qualms about disrupting the careers of women who were trying to protect themselves from his stances.
“He knew when to make you uncomfortable and he clearly enjoyed it. When I brought him a piece of work so he could see it, he said that was when he gave him ‘a little bit of his dick.'” He enjoyed seeing the fake laugh we made at his insulting jokes, seeing our frightened faces when he called us into his office, and seeing how clumsily we moved around the room trying to dodge to answer his questions with some grace so we wouldn’t suffer the consequences. Because yes, if you set boundaries, you You suddenly had nothing to do because he pulled you out of projects, called the entire team to meetings and left you out, or yelled at you for no reason in front of everyone saying you did or said something wrong.
“Show me the neckline you’re wearing today.”
The complainant, who registered her writing on July 28, has a profile almost identical to that of all members of the team formed by Paco Salazar in Moncloa. This means an impressive academic record, two university degrees and graduate specializations, in addition to a clear ideological commitment to the government’s progressive project. There are two other features: they are all women and young.
If he sees you looking bad, he’ll ask you in the middle of the office if you got any sleep from having sex. We were subjected to humiliating situations that were painful for many of us. He said they were jokes, but I’d never heard him say similar things to men
One of the complainants
The same file is that of another young woman who decided to file her complaint with the PSOE even before the previous complaint, specifically, on July 8. “We all had two careers, an exceptional CV and were remarkably well-educated for our age. It was our dream job,” she explained in a conversation with elDiario.es. This complaint reported to the party “explicit behaviour, derogatory jokes and comments about sexuality, clothing or physical appearance.” His writings also disappeared from the Socialist Party’s anti-harassment channel after five months without a response until the Socialist Workers’ Party decided, on Monday, after information from this newspaper, to reactivate them to appear again in the computer system.
“He would come in the morning and tell you about your cute butt caused by those pants or ask you to show him your chest. If he saw you looking bad, he would ask you in the middle of the office if you didn’t sleep well because of sex. He would expose us to humiliating situations that, for many of us, were painful. If you bent down to pick something up from the floor, he would ask you to bend down again to show how flexible you were. And sometimes, when he reached for something.” “He said it was a joke, but I never heard him say similar things to the men who worked on the team,” the young woman said in an interview with this newspaper.
What the men in the department received, according to this worker in Moncloa, were explicit warnings about possible relationships with their colleagues. “They were discouraged from approaching For Baku girls. “Because he was not ashamed to show it: Baku loves ‘girls’ and this is something everyone in the prime minister knows,” he described in the complaint he sent to the party. In a conversation with elDiario.es, he explains this as another way to prove his “sense of ownership” towards them.
Volatile complaints
The first complainant, who went to the SWP’s internal channel after the public testimony of other colleagues in July, admits that it was difficult for her to take this step. “It was not easy to file a complaint because we did not feel any guarantees. I still do not feel any guarantees. I did what the Socialist Workers Party asked me to do, which was to report through internal channels that they had made it available to us at that moment, and not before. Then I made sure that they deleted it from the system. Is this the party and the government that will protect us?”
Even his partner, who reported weeks later, explained in his letter at the end of July the reasons that made him feel afraid. “I must see a group of ministers, as well as other party figures, partly defending this man, on the grounds that no woman has ever denounced him. Of course, none of us denounced this man (I remind you it should have been by his first and last name) because he boasted that he always did what he wanted, that he had the president’s absolute blessing and always won, ‘civil or criminal’. And that’s why that argument, the one we haven’t condemned, hurts.” If you tell me it’s because “We were wearing very short skirts.”
After initially denying the existence of the complaints, the PSOE admitted to elDiario.es that neither woman had been treated or investigated during these five months “due to a lack of care” and therefore, no support or response had been given to either woman. Only now, when this newspaper contacted those responsible for Ferraz, they announced that they would contact those affected and that everything was the result of a computer error, what they call a “blackout” in the system, which was resolved on Monday after publication. Whatever the reason, the woman’s right to information during the procedure has not been fulfilled all this time.
The two complaints officially filed in the internal channel of the PSOE correspond to cases different from those reported in July through this newspaper by other women who were under the orders of Salazar, who also served as president of the Hippodromo de la Zarzuela. On July 5, ElDiario.es published the testimony of a worker in Moncloa detailing lewd comments about clothing and the body, and untimely messages including invitations to eat alone outside of work hours or even offers to sleep at home. This same information details the case of another young SWP volunteer who was related to a veteran socialist leader and who suffered from “corrupt” situations during the 2017 primaries.
One of the women who reported said: “Many people ask me why I don’t leave the party. No, sorry. My values are the values of this party and whoever acts against these values is them.” Her colleague in Moncloa, who denounced it weeks later, concluded in the letter she sent to the PSOE: “I am not asking for anything. Only that a person who I always thought was a partisan rises to a situation in which he should never have been involved. And that this person and those around him will never be in a position to humiliate any more women. I do not know who is behind the first complaints that managed to ring a bell, but I will always be deeply grateful to them.”
Salazar asserts, as this newspaper has been able to confirm, that an external consultation with the President of the State, Salvador Illa, in his capacity as First Secretary of the Peaceful Council, is “inconceivable” and “inappropriate” among the socialist women who were consulted to prepare this information, who reject “any attempt to exonerate or diminish this type of behavior,” as Ferraz attempted. Who or whom? It remains to be discovered. Because the committee that was supposed to investigate the files claimed that they had no evidence, even though it appeared in the computer system that they received the letters in their mailboxes automatically. The organization’s secretary, Rebeca Toro, was also unaware of the disappearance of internal complaints when contacted by elDiario.es. Two hours later, after collecting data from IT and legal services, he gave a strange, technical explanation that he denied on Monday when Moncloa asked him for more details. Like everything, eventually, it will be known.