The Andalusian PSOE filed this Thursday before two courts in Madrid and Seville four demands for conciliation prior to a complaint for defamation and insults against eleven leaders of the PP and Vox, among whom are the popular spokesman in Congress, Miguel Tellado, the party's deputy and deputy secretary general, Elías Bendodo, the Vox spokesman in the lower house, María José Rodríguez Millán, and two advisers to the government of Juan Manuel Moreno, the head of the presidency, Antonio Sanz, and the head of Justice, José Antonio Nieto.
The Socialists denounce their public statements – outside the parliamentary headquarters that protects them with immunity from possible complaints –, their comments on social networks and some videos that they have openly circulated, in which they openly accuse the party of being “thieves” and of “stealing from the Andalusians”. with regard to the ERE fraud.
These are two complaints from PSOE-A, as a legal entity, against PP leaders and two against Vox in Madrid and two more in Andalusia. The latter also includes a complaint in a personal capacity from Secretary General Juan Espadas.
Complaints have been filed in the Court of First Instance of Seville against the two former councillors of the executive and against the general secretary of the Andalusian PP, Antonio Repullo. The Socialists are also complaining against the Vox spokesman in the regional parliament, Manuel Gavira, the deputy Javier Cortés, the parliamentarian Ana María Ruiz, and two councillors of the ultra group in the Seville city council, Gonzalo García Polavieja and Fernando Rodríguez Galisteo.
The leadership of the socialist governments of Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán – a dozen leaders – was convicted by the Provincial Court of Seville for fraud and embezzlement, which was later confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2022.
However, over the past month The Constitutional Court has accepted, in whole or in part, the request for protection of a dozen of these leaders – including the former Andalusian presidents – who annulled their sentences and questioned the main premise of those sentences, that is, that there was an organised plan from the top of the Andalusian government to facilitate the fraud of 680 million euros in social employment aid, including the approval of the autonomous budget law in Parliament.
The leaders of the PP and Vox, against whom the PSOE is suing, have continued to insist publicly and on their social networks that the socialist governments “stole 680 million from Andalusians”, referring to the Supreme Court rulings. The aforementioned individuals believe that the Constitutional Court has annulled these sentences and ordered the Court of Seville and the Supreme Court to issue new rulings, taking into account that the previous ones violated the fundamental rights of the convicts, including the presumption of innocence.
Espadas had already threatened the PP with a series of lawsuits if they persisted in their individual accusations against socialist leaders whose sentences had been annulled. The PSOE-A leader made these first complaints known during his meeting with the president of the board of directors, Juan Manuel Moreno, in the Andalusian parliament.
That same oversight session has turned into a brawl over the ERE case, with Espadas demanding that Moreno instruct his people to stop accusing them of theft and to abide by and respect the constitutional ruling. But the Council president has reiterated the Supreme Court ruling, explaining that the Guarantee Court “did not deny that there was fraud or that there was a conspiracy.”
Moreno has shamed the opposition leader for using his final intervention in the last plenary session of the session to “expose the fraud of the ERE” and try to “rewrite the darkest part of the Andalusian PSOE”. “It seems incredible to me, I am hallucinating”, he said. Those around the Council President believe that this strategy by the Socialists to revive their former leaders, including Chaves and Griñán, is counterproductive. “In politics, it is always a mistake to look to the past”, they warn.
The Andalusian president responded to Espadas that this strategy is a “smokescreen” to distract public opinion from the legal cases affecting the national PSOE, such as the Koldo case or the investigation into the alleged conflict of interest of Begoña Gómez, the wife of Pedro Sánchez.
The PP-A spokesman in the Chamber, Toni Martín, has been more strict in his speech. He has taken out his DNI, shown it to Espadas and challenged him to also denounce him in court. “I keep saying that they have stolen 680 million from the Andalusians, report me”, he warned.
PSOE-A leadership sources admit that judges can reject complaints against PP leaders, although they are more confident that complaints against Vox government officials will be successful, “because their statements and actions are more stupid.” After the Constitutional Court rulings annulling the ERE sentences, Vox in Andalusia called a demonstration at the doors of the PSOE Andalusian headquarters, on San Vicente Street in Seville, where serious insults were uttered, which they recorded on video and broadcast on their social networks. The Socialists used it as documentation in their complaint.
Espadas is not afraid that the judges will file the complaints, he hopes that the magistrates “will represent themselves” so that it is clear to citizens that “in Spain there is total impunity against those who slander and insult.”