When the scandal of harassment accusations against Paco Salazar broke out at the gates of the Socialist Party headquarters in Madrid, with activist media still burning due to the sound of audios of Ábalos and Koldo referring to certain women, a woman who was more than 500 kilometers away began to feel a little less alone. It was early July. The president, Pedro Sánchez, promised in response the creation of an independent body to denounce sexual harassment within the group. And she believed that finally someone from there (Madrid) was arriving at the school. It had been a month since he decided to give the table he had spent years on and was ready to break through. omerta to which he had submitted so as not to cause harm to the party. She didn’t even know that she was going to feel even more alone and that this silence would not protect her from anything. They must be having a bad four months.
On Saturday July 5, a party member and ex-companion from Torremolinos (Málaga, 70,000 inhabitants) sent it via WhatsApp at 10:51 a.m. to the holders of that day: “Several women from the PSOE denounce Paco Salazar for inappropriate behavior”, “Salazar voluntarily resigns from the leadership of the PSOE leads to accusations from several women…” If you have just caught the thread.
—If we did, we would bring back a lot of things…
—Bueno, I have to tell you.
The council had undertaken a path similar to that of the women who mentioned the periodicals, but without any visibility. I didn’t want it either. Although there is still no official reporting mechanism, it has been used as usual for other cases. On June 8, he sent a letter to the PSOE organizational secretary in Malaga, accusing the party’s general secretary in Torremolinos, Antonio Navarro, of an alleged crime of sexual assault, in addition to having “the intention of obtaining favors of a sexual nature without my desire or consent.” He also added all the messages that were sent between September and November 2021 while she was trying to change his conversation: “You are very good”, “Did you always have this escort? —, as well as more than 50 in one night when she demonstrated as she did. “Atosigaba” after having suffered an episode of “physical aggression”: “I had caught the culo in my office”.
In the text received by EL PAÍS, the council explains: “I would like to clarify that I never brought to the attention of the party organs the information and documents that were transferred in this complaint, to avoid damaging the acronyms and for fear of reprisals. There was a broken silence, at least internally.
This marte, the activist explains how everything happened. “I am sending this letter to the provincial secretariat of the organization because there is no such support body. Now there is a link, where you pinch, there is a specific channel, where one can find a question about this matter.” Three days after this first warning, the party transferred the complaint to Ferraz, PSOE headquarters in Madrid. And, with the creation of the new organ, I contacted him to have a telematic meeting: “On July 15, I had a video call with the organ and I asked him to act diligently, I was very afraid. I also asked to warn him, who told me, to be vigilant, but depending on my environment. On October 14, return to the organization’s secretariat to press your case.
After four months of silence from the party, a chance meeting with a local expert on gender violence led him to take a new step. “She warned me what was wrong with my story. I told myself that it was very manipulative and that I was careful,” he says. “All the alarms were activated for me. I think that even if the party solved the problem, even if it dropped the case, the party could not protect me from anyone. So on November 10, I went to the tax office and filed a complaint,” he reports. A month later, the newspaper South published his story, the time he published another episode of it again Salazar affair: the denunciations of these women before the party simmered for several months. The PSOE then suspended the activism of Antonio Navarro, announced that an official would lead the party in the locality and asked the general secretary to submit his minutes as councilor and provincial deputy. However, no one has received any news from the anti-acoso organization.
The fear of the council has not yet disappeared. Remember well the day you said no. At the precise moment when, he counts, he believes everything is over. Aunque had already given some clues. Summer 2021. He wanted to invite her to attend his sister’s birthday, with his whole family. For her, married, it seemed very rare to appear before her people as if she were a couple. I rejected it. He also remembers how he offered to buy a case for her to always carry on his motorcycle. Reject it too, tell me. She recorded the image of her on the door of the Ayuntamiento waiting for her, of her in every project she had with companions, of Navarro surprised by her in any act. To invent an improvised agenda so that it doesn’t coincide, to not go to an event if you knew he was there. Remember when I said this whole thing makes you uncomfortable? But then he received the messages he added to his complaint.
One day I was in his office. “We were talking about how we had organized the day. I remember sitting with him on the benches in front of my office,” he says. And in an instant, the child gets up to lift a rug off the shelf. “Then, suddenly, he grabbed my butt,” he remembers. “I said: ‘But what are you doing?’ You will have my order right away.” And give me the 51 messages that you were able to see”, señala. In these messages, Navarro insists on asking for an apology, even if she does not respond.
“I was waiting for someone to be tired,” he said. I then decided not to move anyone’s file, because it was the mayor’s hand and she had a high level of responsibility within the Ayuntamiento. “And then I thought, ‘I can’t tell you, because the damage done to the party is atrocious.'” But, according to his complaint, he didn’t get tired.
Navarro, who refused to make a statement to this newspaper, was considered by all as a “humble and good-natured” man, who did not come from the party, from power, from the world of selling hair products. “He was nice, socarrón, as they call it here good people“, says the mayor. “He’s a very embaucador, he’s a good person, who doesn’t take anything wrong, because everything is always a joke,” says another ex-companion of the party that caused professional disagreements with him. Another companion, who assures not to be aware of the situation that denounces the idea at the moment, adds: “It didn’t surprise me. He had a misogynistic profile, quite misogynistic, in the opinion that women gave them orders, a complicated character. Process by chance.
At the end of 2021, the PSOE of Torremolinos sold out the government after a motion of censure. And then a truce process begins, believes the council. He was about to present himself to the general secretary and she gave him an ultimatum: “I support you, but on one condition, I will no longer receive a single message from you without insinuation that emerges from the professional relationship that we maintain. I wasn’t so afraid of acronyms because we had left the government. » He admits that he didn’t care about it at the time and after she won the primary to be the party’s candidate for mayor. “And as a candidate, I knew she was untouchable,” she said.
That’s when the municipal elections will take place in 2023, when the whole story comes back, this time in a different way, it matters. “Then it becomes worse for the evolution. When you feel rejected, it becomes worse for you in another way: professional, political,” he explains. Party sources in Torremolinos recognize that Navarro left the council organization for reasons such as “the workshop equipment robot without anyone checking”, they say. “It seemed absurd to us,” admit these sources. “I sent a message to all the activists by inventing anything about me and I could not defend myself, because of course he was secretary general, and he had contacts with the whole world and I could not. He saw me at an absolute disadvantage to be able to defend myself”, denounces the council.
The last time I had contact with him was October 19. The council then sent a letter in June, a complaint to the anti-acquisition body in July and reiterated its complaint with another letter to the organization’s secretariat four days earlier. Navarro participated that day in the middle of an act for the fight against breast cancer, a solidarity career called Marea Rosa, which was placed in a photo next to her. She’s in business. A few weeks later, he went to the tax office. To justify the protective measures requested by the court, the council warned: “The aggressive and intimidating act of the accused makes me feel real panic when I am physically violated at the door of my house.”
These days, your husband has expressed his greatest fear out loud. He who didn’t say anything to Nadie, didn’t say anything to her. It haunts him all night and makes him want to glorify the morning of this planet. Aunque repeats as his motto: “I hope to be the last”. However, he doesn’t know if he will deserve it. “I don’t want this to affect my family in any way,” he summarizes. Real and concrete fear demands that it be erased from the libreta.
About The Author
