The opposition shoots at Salvador Illa: "The mud has arrived in Catalonia"

BarcelonaThe President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, will not have to appear in this week's plenary session to explain the PSOE scandals because ERC backed down and allied with Comuns to vote against his appearance on Tuesday. However, the head of the executive did not escape opposition attacks and reproaches from his partners this Wednesday in a more than tense Government control session.

Illa had to face opposition reproaches for the alleged corruption cases affecting the PSOE. From Junts, Mònica Sales did not mince her words. "The PSOE is mired up to its neck and Zapatero up to its eyebrows, but the mud has reached Catalonia, up to your own electoral campaign," the Junts member insisted, referring to the National High Court's request to the socialists to hand over to Judge Santiago Pedraz all contracts and expenses from the 2024 campaign. "Catalonia needs explanations and you are silent and refuse to appear with the support of Comuns and ERC, but it is urgent that you show your face so as not to increase suspicions," she added.

"You are the ones who don't listen and act on rumors. We have provided explanations about the contract with Huawei, which followed all procedures, and the Court of Auditors issued a favorable report for the campaign. What further explanations do you need?", the head of the executive replied. There is no open investigation into Huawei, although the summary of the case in which José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is implicated mentions the former Spanish president's ties to the Chinese government. Illa's explanations have not satisfied Sales, who retorted that not everything is "fake news" and urged him to abandon victimhood, recalling the EU's sanctions against the Chinese mobile phone company, with whom the Government has signed a contract worth 127 million euros. Junts also lumps together the commission that Zapatero's partners intended to take from the Hard Rock project in Tarragona (as inferred from the judicial summary), even though the Junts party members are as supportive of this project as, or even more so than, the PSOE.

The Popular Party's Alejandro Fernández also asked the president if all corruption cases are "an invention of the 'fatxosfera'" and criticized him for defending Zapatero tooth and nail. "Neither Zapatero was Bambi nor are you the ideal son-in-law. I don't know if you are complicit in the corruption, but politically you are responsible for associating with Koldo, Cerdán, Ábalos, and who knows if with Zapatero," said the leader of the PP in Catalonia. "The PSC is free of corruption," replied the head of the executive, adding that he is not bothered by being compared to Zapatero. "I would be concerned if I resembled Aznar, like you," he said, denouncing that the PP is now willing to "do things with Junts," in relation to a possible motion of no confidence. Ignacio Garriga, from Vox, also labeled the latest schemes affecting the PSOE as "socialist sewers" and lamented that Illa responds "with lies."

Esquerra talks about contradictions

the celebration of a neo-Nazi festival in Santa SusannaJèssica Albiach, from Comuns, also demanded explanations from the socialists, even though, like ERC, her party prevented Parliament from forcing Illa to do so in a parliamentary session. "Zapatero and Sánchez are too late in giving explanations," she lamented, and urged the Catalan president to demand them from his party because not everything is "lawfare". "I wish everyone would give explanations as quickly as my party," the president replied.

The CUP and Aliança Catalana were the only ones who did not refer to the judicial front affecting the PSOE in Wednesday's session. The anti-capitalists reproached the Generalitat for allowing, for the fourth consecutive year, the holding of a neo-Nazi festival in Santa Susanna. "We are focusing on local administrations that allow it," replied Illa, referring to the municipal government of Junts. Aliança Catalana, as it usually does, took advantage of the control session to criticize the Government for "importing poverty and violence" with the arrival of thousands of immigrants in recent years.