Not all Saudi gifts deserve a fuss

If every time a media outlet writes the word explodes in a headline in a hyperbolic way a euro landed in my piggy bank, I would already be writing these articles from my mansion in Saudi Arabia, to name a place completely at random. “The PSOE explodes over the ‘shameful’ origin of Zapatero’s jewels,” writes Abc on its front page. I dig into the archives to discover that, in recent times, the socialist party has exploded “against Aldama,” “against the PP,” “against Page,” or “against the ‘trash heap’ of Pelayo.” Beyond the worn-out formula, which draws a caricature of a party in continuous explosion while it has already accumulated 3,307 days of government with Sánchez, what is here is the typical headline with unattributed quotes following a call to a critic. Of course, if they wrote “A disgruntled PSOE member criticizes the PSOE” on the front page, the matter would lose its impact.

It is not that the jewel affair is not scandalous. I imagine them especially heavy, or red-hot, on the head and chest of former president Zapatero. But I cannot stop smiling thinking about Saudi generosity and the great fuss made by the right-wing newspapers. I try to remember if there is any other figure in Spanish public life who also had gifts fall from the sky, such as 10 million dollars just after being crowned king, money that was deposited in Switzerland and not declared to the Treasury, as reported by El País. Or the 36 million dollars documented in the memoirs of General Alonso Manglano, former director of the Cesid, to “finance the Transition.” Or the 100 million dollars transferred by the Ministry of Finance to an account at the Swiss bank Mirabaud, in the name of a foundation of which he was a beneficiary, and which were transferred to an account in the Bahamas linked to Corinna Larsen. The cases, as we know, were closed, but I do not remember Abc exclaiming. Nor looking for whether anyone had exploded.