The break between José Luis Ábalos and the PSOE offered new deliveries this week. Six months after the party expelled him from its ranks and from the parliamentary group of Congress due to the scandal of the “Koldo affair”, which was number two party leader and Minister of Transport issues a clear warning to the socialists regarding his behaviour as a deputy of the Mixed Group. “From now on, I will vote with a clear conscience, I will no longer be a supporter of the PSOE,” he said Wednesday in statements reported by El Español.
This position means breaking with the commitment that Ábalos himself made when he warned that he would not hand over his deputy certificate, as his party demanded, and that he would cling to the Mixed Group. “I do not want to be a problem for the majority of the Congress for the government, I will follow the directives of the socialist group,” he said then. But things have changed in recent days.
The reaction comes after the announcement by the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, that his department had made public an audit that, among other things, investigated the role that Ábalos himself played in the so-called “Koldo case.” In fact, Puente’s team attributes the order to double the purchase of masks to the plot of his then adviser.
The former secretary of the Organization of Socialists did not hide his deep discomfort with this approach. “More than a report or an audit, it looks like a court of honor, which is prohibited by the Constitution,” he said this week in an interview with Cuatro.
In the same interview, he showed his disappointment with what his party was until last February. And aware of the low number of members of Congress, he encouraged the idea that, from now on, he could bring down key votes in favor of Pedro Sánchez’s executive.
The current Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, announced just a week ago the dismissal of two senior officials he kept in his cabinet and that in addition to being accused, they emerged particularly badly damaged by the internal investigation into the “Koldo case” that opened just a few months ago. The audit, published on the ministry’s website, speaks of “irregularities” in the contracts for the purchase of masks during the pandemic and points the finger at the management of the team of former minister Ábalos.
According to this report, the Ministry of Transport doubled the first purchase of masks after the start of the pandemic in just 38 minutes. During this period, the Ábalos department sent an order that changed an initial order of almost 4 million masks to about 8. According to the documents provided during the audit, the portfolio ended up paying 20 million euros for this purchase, dated March 20, just a week after the government declared a state of alarm due to the pandemic situation.
The judge in charge of the investigation into the “Koldo case” at the National Court, Ismael Moreno, requested a certified copy of this internal audit from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.
Government hopes Ábalos will vote with PSOE
In the PSOE and Moncloa, for the moment, they prefer not to take the declaration of intentions of their former colleague as a real threat. The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, declared on Friday that he was convinced that the former minister José Luis Ábalos “will continue to support and defend progressive proposals” in the Congress of Deputies.
“We all know José Luis Ábalos and I am convinced that he will continue to support and defend progressive proposals, to defend the welfare state, the pillars of housing, equality, job creation, and this will be the case in the immediate future,” Torres said in statements to the media before participating in a debate table on historical memory in Arucas (Gran Canaria).
The former president of the Canary Islands also stressed that, in his opinion, Ábalos did not take for granted that he would stop supporting the PSOE in its parliamentary proposals, but rather said “not to take for granted that he will always have their support.” A warning to sailors, they say within the socialist parliamentary group, which for the moment is perceived more as a call for attention and an express request not to be reported any more, than as a real desire to jeopardize a parliamentary majority that is already larger than ever.
