The old scoundrels

A video is circulating on social media showing Carlos Mazón in the corridors of the Valencian Parliament dodging a swarm of journalists with vague excuses and forced smiles. They are asking him a question: if he intends to resign his seat as a deputy, now that Judge Núria Ruiz Tobarra — better known as "the DANA judge"— has summoned him to testify in the proceedings concerning the alleged negligence of the Generalitat Valenciana during the DANA on October 29, 2024. On that day, protocols were not activated correctly because, while the downpour was falling, Mazón was having a four-hour lunch with journalist Maribel Vilaplana, while his chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, told the Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, not to even consider the idea of confining the population. Pradas also allegedly delayed the sending of the telephone alert because she was concerned that it might be in "Valencian" and not in "Catalan." A combination of laziness, idleness, ideological decisions, and the blunders of incompetent people that led to a great tragedy. The person ultimately responsible for all of that — politically and operationally responsible — was Carlos Mazón, and that makes him the alleged perpetrator of reckless homicide (of 230 homicides), which is what Judge Ruiz Tobarra accuses him of.This could not happen because the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community rejected Mazón's imputation, as was sadly predictable. However, the Valencian high court's decision had a double edge, because, on the other hand, it indicated to Ruiz Tobarra that she should continue investigating. This is what the judge from Catarroja is doing by summoning Mazón as a witness, with the added difficulty —for Mazón— that those indicted can lie in their statements to the court if it is part of their defense strategy. But a witness cannot lie: if they do, it is a crime. In his case, it would be an additional crime.Given that the leaders of the Popular Party are usually "hot" people (in the sense that this word is used in the Valencian Community), in the aforementioned video, Mazón appears, at the end of March as we are, with a full summer tan. This means he is living well, happy with his new well-paid life without work or responsibilities. Like his good friends, the current president of the Generalitat Valenciana Juanfran Pérez Llorca and his partner, Vanesa Soler, who was suddenly promoted, and "due to urgent necessity," to a public position in the Diputación of Valencia, for which she is neither qualified nor expected to do anything specific, but for which she will receive a salary of 52,000 euros per year.Both Mazón and Pérez Llorca had as a political mentor another former president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Eduardo Zaplana, who is in his seventh year as terminally ill (he was released from prison, where he had entered after a continuous plundering of public coffers, presenting a medical report that recognized him with "a 100% risk of dying"). They are, in effect, the old scoundrels of always.