The legal proceedings opened against former PP Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro and 27 other people are shaking up the public scene with a certain morbidity, at a time when the PP has made the fight against corruption—with Sánchez as the ringleader—the central theme of its strategy to seize power. The tricks being revealed are no joke. Around the Economic Team, the minister's private consultancy, and certain groups in the gas, electricity, and renewable energy sectors, they have allegedly created a network of influence peddling, corruption, tax fraud, malfeasance, and bribery, with the threatening use of the Tax Agency, which points to significant national complicity. This is not an isolated case of corruption, but a repeated practice between the ministry and certain private companies, with Montoro's people as facilitators.
It would be interesting to know who and how this scandal erupted, given the timing. But the events are of such magnitude that it would be regrettable if everything were left as just another episode in the confrontation between the PP and the PSOE. Obviously, it's a blow to Feijóo and a bit of a breath of fresh air for Sánchez. And it exposes the PP's weakness and lack of strategic sense by making corruption the sole theme of its opposition, forgetting that its party has the worst record in this area. This is the belief in impunity that the right often lives by, convinced that it owns the country.
The PP takes a beating, but that shouldn't be the dominant theme in the hangover now brewing. What should make us reflect is what we don't always want to know: corruption is deeply rooted in Spain, with constant traffic between sectors of economic and political power, which, as this case demonstrates, is not superficial. And which, as it has often denounced to Europe, confirms the partisan contamination of the General Council of the Judiciary.
With the two major parties bogged down in this mud, it's clear that the Spanish democratic system has significant cracks, through which perfectly wretched behavior creeps in, alarmingly eroding the system. And which, evidently, are currently providing fodder for the far right, which is capitalizing on the discontent at a time when the left is losing ground.
The Montoro case that has just emerged is yet another very serious warning, one that shouldn't go unnoticed. But after what we've seen and what we're seeing now, can we imagine the PSOE and PP being able to lead a profound reform of the structures of a state that shows too many signs of systemic illegalities? This is what the most basic responsibility would demand, which seems incompatible with the logic of those fighting for power. And it is the weak link that undermines the quality of democracies, which are increasingly rare, in the midst of an authoritarian drift.
