Alvise Pérez’s triumph was explained, they said, by his mastery of networks and catchy language like the song of the summer. In reality, his success rested on one of the oldest political tricks: exploiting discontent and its emotions; point out an abstract but convincing enemy; propose the destruction of everything as the only solution.
Alvise played prophet among his people. I am yet another defrauded by the system and I have come to show you the way out, he seemed to say.
Alvise, in the video posted on his social networks last Thursday.
That outcome was, of course, about elevating Alvise to the top. He promised that he would carry out this mission as a lone hero, like a Robin Hood who did not want to get rich with gold, but rather distribute it to the poor, like an infiltrator who sacrificed himself for the cause.
And, while he deceived so many people thirsty for change, he pocketed 100,000 euros without declaring them. Others are still corrupt, of course. Alvise’s thing is resistance against state fiscal terrorism.
Of course, it’s because they caught him. Because until now such an act of rebellion, which he now offers to his acolytes as a model to follow, remained in the shadows. Like his true intentions.
You have to have courage. The one who gained votes by swearing to reveal cases of corruption that would scandalize the country, is now spouting excuses like a surprised rascal to try to get us to support his shenanigans. But Alvise is not Lazarillo de Torres, but another connoisseur of the digital factory.
Didn’t thousands of Spaniards vote for Alvise, promising to vote for one of their own? Didn’t they also have the right to know how much and how their idolized champion earned?
Didn’t they deserve to know that the one who persecuted and harassed others under the guise of transparency was selling his support in exchange for cryptocurrencies?
“Do like me and get paid in black,” he now shouts from the screen. A somewhat disappointing harangue for the one who promised to descend into the hells of corruption and return victorious.
This serves as a lesson To find good politicians, you don’t have to look for them on social networks. It is not algorithms that generate great leaders, but honest citizens aware of what the common good is.
Alvise’s voters perhaps imagined that by stimulating the agitator, they would also end up sharing his glory. They pushed a supposed professor of narration and the new decontamination policy and they found the same fraud as always.
In the end, it turned out that Alvise is, to the surprise of some, just another member of the group. Another one playing with his cards in his bag. Another one who doesn’t lie and who only changes his criteria. An aspiring populist leader who enriches himself as only wolves, not lambs, know how to do.
