The risk of mixing politics and family

MadridTraditionally, parliamentary oversight of the government—of any government—has been understood primarily as dedicated to analyzing and criticizing its management. It was a useful function for society insofar as it allowed for reviewing the actions of those responsible for the various departments and reporting non-compliance or irregularities, making alternative proposals, and, ultimately, encouraging the administration's good work. But now all these issues have taken a backseat. What's important, essential, now is monitoring the activities of the ruler's family. This is what makes media headlines and what serves to attack the adversary and leave them looking like a dirty rag. The importance acquired by indirect control of power, through surveillance and, if necessary, persecution of the families of public officials, has been legendary this term.

I'm not saying there's no reason to keep an eye on the matter. There are behaviors by relatives that can do serious damage to a politician. In Catalonia, we've seen egregious cases, and throughout Spain, others equally or more serious. What I'm referring to is the prominent space currently occupied in the Spanish Parliament by everything related to the kinship of some of the main political leaders, to the point of starring in, and sometimes monopolizing, the juiciest parts of government oversight sessions. Added to this is a good collection of insults, abuse, or rudeness, as the case may be.

Once again, we see that we've reached a point of no return in this legislature. We can't expect any significant agreement between the Socialists and the Popular Party, or any state pact, even though there are issues that would warrant it, from the housing crisis to energy policy, including increased spending on security and defense. The latest judicial action against the brother of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez or the partner of the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is more important than having a thorough debate on the pressure we are receiving from Washington and NATO regarding the advisability of dedicating 5% of GDP to preparing for a well-deterred conflict. The priority is a direct attack on the adversary, with justification or mere conjecture and the support of sympathetic media.

Disaffection

What both sides will likely achieve by this path is a gradual decline in the number of citizens interested in paying attention to this dynamic. The argument that there is no such thing as a clean slate provokes more frustration than anything else. With one nuance, an important corrective factor, which is the evidence that continued allegations of corruption generate a climate that is always more damaging to those in power, even if they are made without evidence, than to an opposition determined to resort to these practices. If the PP and its spokespersons manage to identify Sánchezism with deception and abuse of power, they will have built a powerful weapon to undermine the coalition government in general and the Socialists in particular.

In this sense, the PP and Vox have gained an important point with Judge Beatriz Biedma's decision to send David Sánchez, the Prime Minister's brother, to trial, accusing him of malfeasance and influence peddling. However, it should be noted that the judge made this decision without giving the Badajoz Court time to rule on the appeals filed against the indictment, which had been granted just days before. The defense found the judge's haste odd. But the one who moved the fastest was the president of the Badajoz Provincial Council, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, who took advantage of the resignation of a Socialist representative from her seat in the Extremadura Parliament to accredit himself as a regional parliamentarian and thus gain the status of a member of parliament with special jurisdiction, presumably with the aim of having the case transferred to the High Court of Justice of this autonomous community. This move is a risky maneuver, as it raises the possibility that the purpose was to remove the judge's jurisdiction over the case and its prosecution.

In any case, the position given to David Sánchez in this Provincial Council as head of the Performing Arts Office was obtained before his brother had even reached the Moncloa Palace. The main connection to politics is the family relationship between the recipient of the position—according to the judge, it was created for him without a real competition—and the Socialist leader. We'll see whether the case goes to trial or is dismissed, but the path he's already taken allows for the creation of a whole landscape of suspicion, especially when it ends up tying the knot with the activities of the president's wife, Begoña Gómez, in the chair she held at the Complutense University of Madrid. The theory of favoring companies from this position hasn't been formalized in an indictment, but these days, a summons as a defendant for certain crimes is enough to create an unfair image of guilt.

Clearly, the case of former minister Ábalos and his friend and advisor Koldo is very different and undeniably rude. Here, the problem isn't family ties, but belonging to another kind of family: the political family. For the Socialists, the figure enabling the game of cross-accusations is Díaz Ayuso and her girlfriend, businessman Alberto González Amador. With a new twist, the case against the State Attorney General, who we'll see if he ends up being the main collateral victim of the businessman's tax crimes, if it's proven that he leaked information about the accused's willingness to accept the charges in exchange for avoiding jail time. A theory the businessman now denies, saying he did not authorize his lawyer to propose this type of negotiation. But the Madrid president's mistake was getting involved in the case, defending her partner and denouncing a state operation to turn the matter into a fictional political tale. It would have been better for her, as in the other cases, to ensure that behaviors that, at the very least, constitute risky behaviors were avoided within her family.