{"id":142,"date":"2014-01-08T01:15:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T01:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2014-02-06T01:15:35","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T01:15:35","slug":"corruption-scandals-provoke-spanish-ire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/corruption-scandals-provoke-spanish-ire\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption scandals provoke Spanish ire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Protestors,<\/a>

Protestors, pictured in Madrid last year, hold a demonstration against corruption in Spain.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two landmark cases, involving ruling party and royalty, leave citizens with a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu<\/strong><\/p>\n

BUENOS AIRES \u2014\u00a0Yesterday\u2019s news that Princess Cristina had been indicted and named as a formal suspect in an investigation into alleged corruption was, for many, a landmark moment in a landmark case.<\/p>\n

Up until now, Spain\u2019s Royal family had been able to claim that the king\u2019s blood relatives have been clean, despite the fact that Cristina\u2019s husband, I\u00f1aki Urdangarin, was accused of embezzlement months ago, along with his former business partner, Diego Torres.<\/p>\n

That line of defence has now been eliminated and Cristina, the second-youngest daughter of King Juan Carlos, will become the first Royal to appear in court since the monarchy was restored in 1975. The princess, 48, will face questions over alleged money-laundering and tax evasion.<\/p>\n

But this is not the only landmark case that\u2019s on the minds of Spaniards of late. The \u201cN\u00f3os Case,\u201d as it has become known, is just one of a number of high-level corruption scandals which involve people in positions of power or authority.<\/p>\n

For example, former Caja Madrid boss Miguel Blesa has also been accused of corruption stemming from his time in charge of the savings bank. He has complained of persecution and has even launched a complaint against the judge who was previously in charge of his trial.<\/p>\n

But the most famous case \u2014 one that brought Spaniards onto the streets in protest last year\u2014 remains the \u201cB\u00e1rcenas case,\u201d which implicates the ruling Popular Party (PP), led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.<\/p>\n

In this scandal, the PP\u2019s former treasurer, Luis B\u00e1rcenas, is accused of running a secret slush-fund that paid off party officials with money from figures in the construction business. Some estimates put the money involved in the scam at a whopping 48 million euros.<\/p>\n

While B\u00e1rcenas was removed from his position in 2009, he continued to receive financial support from the PP. Four years on, he is now in prison yet still awaiting a trial.<\/p>\n

The scandals have come at a particularly bad moment for Spain, at a time of great economic crisis with huge amounts of ordinary citizens out of work and a government committed to cuts in public spending. And they\u2019re undermining faith in the government and in the country\u2019s institutions.<\/p>\n

HIGHEST ECHELONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some similarities in the B\u00e1rcenas case and the No\u00f3s case. Both have touched the highest echelons of society: Royalty in one case and the prime minister in another.<\/p>\n

Rajoy, despite not admitting to any crime, was forced onto the defensive last year when the scandal broke, conceding to Spanish lawmakers in Parliament that he shouldn\u2019t have placed his trust in B\u00e1rcenas. The excrutiating debate on the issue, televised live, lasted five-and-a-half hours.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what Princess Cristina has to say when she appears in a court in Palma de Mallorca on March 8, later this year.<\/p>\n

Both cases also, allegedly, involve similar schemes of shadow-accounting and shell companies. Cristina, Urdangarin and Torres are accused of using their non-profit organization Instituto N\u00f3os and their family business, Aizoon (co-owned by the princess). as shell companies for their alleged illegal activities.\u00a0B\u00e1rcenas, according to the allegations aired in court, is accused of using various shell companies and Swiss bank accounts to take and give bribes and avoid taxation.<\/p>\n

Similar charges, similar techniques.<\/p>\n

FALL-OUT<\/strong><\/p>\n

What the fall-out will be from these scandals is, as yet, unclear, but an opinion poll carried out over the weekend said that 62 percent of citizens would like King Juan Carlos to abdicate as monarch. Whether this number remains the same after yesterday\u2019s news is doubtful.<\/p>\n

A Spanish journalist, speaking to the BBC yesterday, said the country\u2019s citizens were happy with the N\u00f3os case and the way it is progressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people will tell you that they felt more relieved than shocked and this includes even people who are sympathetic to the royal family,\u201d said Miguel Anxo Murado, a contributor to The Guardian<\/em> and The Huffington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it will be sufficient for many people in this environment of economic crisis, well, that remains to be seen,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

How the anger in ordinary Spaniards, sparked by these scandals, will translate into action against the political establishment remains to be seen. While the PP is not exactly popular of late, it has polled better than its socialist rivals, the PSOE.<\/p>\n

Three months ago, a survey carried out by El Pa\u00eds<\/em> said 34.1 percent of citizens would vote for the PP in an election \u2014 indicating that support for the party is rising as revelations from the B\u00e1rcenas case fade with time. That figure is below the 44.6 percent of the vote the PP took in the last parliamentary election in 2011, but still enough defeat the PSOE, who the survey said would take just 29 percent.<\/p>\n

Originally published in the\u00a0Buenos Aires Herald<\/span><\/a><\/span>, on Wednesday, January 8, 2013.
\n<\/strong><\/em>Link:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>http:\/\/www.buenosairesherald.com\/article\/149152\/corruption-scandals-provoke-spanish-ire<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0J. GRAINGER, 2013<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Two landmark cases, involving ruling party and royalty, leave citizens with a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu BUENOS AIRES \u2014\u00a0Yesterday\u2019s news that Princess Cristina had been indicted and named as a formal suspect in an investigation into alleged corruption was, for many, a landmark moment in a landmark case. Up until now, Spain\u2019s Royal family had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,37,65,99],"tags":[69,102,105,44,67,104,103,518],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-journalism","category-spain","category-world","tag-corruption","tag-government","tag-graft","tag-politics-2","tag-pp","tag-princess-cristina","tag-royalty","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}