Fear that Ábalos will not limit himself to abandoning voting discipline: “He feels betrayed and will destroy the Government”

Since the call broke out last February Koldo case, Jose Luis Abalos was ostracized by those who had been, for many years, his companionsalmost all his subordinatesand some of their superiors.

By order of Pedro Sanchezwas excluded from the socialist parliamentary group and relegated to the joint group. Furthermore, the same leader urged Santos CerdanAbalos’ successor as Secretary of the Organization, to open a disciplinary filewith suspension of activism for not having given up his seat, which should end with the withdrawal of his license.

Since then, the former minister has continued to act in Congress. as if he were still the 121st PSOE deputy. Meanwhile, Ábalos has always voted “following” what his party wanted, but now he could even endanger Sánchez’s key project in the coming months, that of the Catalan concert.

Even if what the ERC says were true, namely that “the Junts will never vote against the Catalan quotabecause the independence movement has been demanding it for a decade,” the division in Sumar, where IU, Compromís and Chunta oppose the projectyou can convert your vote into a key.

Sooner or later, Moncloa acknowledges, the Lower House will have to carry out a key reform, that of the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA). And this requires 176 affirmative votes… that is to say 56 more than the Socialist Party.

However, already in February, the inhabitants of Ábalos warned this newspaper against how “disappointed” he felt by the PSOE“He continues to pay the fees, because otherwise the expulsion is automatic, but they do not even allow him to appeal the opening of a file,” these sources explain.

The formal and the real

The formal reason for the freezing of the process was that the party had not yet sent the necessary documentation to be able to present its allegations. The underlying reason, his entourage now understands, is that in Moncloa and Ferraz he is considered dead.

“There will be separate piece on Ábalos in court because of illegal commissions for the purchase of masks at the ministry,” assumes a member of the Council of Ministers. And this forced a firewall operationwhich was confirmed last week, with the audit published by the current minister of the sector, Oscar Bridge.

The feeling around Ábalos is that the real reason is that they want to make him pay personally for any irregularities that may have been committed. Whether or not there is a current minister, Angel Victor Torreswhose Canarian government could commit similar attacks; or a president of Congress, Francine Armengolof which the Balearic government has done three quarters of the same.

Ábalos continues to defend that his actions were correct and that “the only objective” of the contracts concluded was to “protect the health” of the Spanishin general, and the workers who depended on their ministry, in particular.

Specifically, regarding the correction in just 38 minutes of an order for 4 to 8 million masks, letting better offers pass and submitting to the demands of Soluciones de Gestión SL, the parent company of the plot, he affirms that as minister he signed what his advisers put “in front of him.”

And that he would have signed for 12 or 16 million units if that had been the supplier’s condition. Because on that day, March 20, 2020, less than a week after the declaration of the first state of alert, there was a “total shortage” of these products on the Spanish market.

“Thirst for revenge”

“Now he is hungry for revenge,” says a party leader. “I know him and I don’t think he will wait to save what is his, he will blow up the government.”

The truth is that, in the case of Ábalos, it rains when it rains. He had already been purged just a year after the pandemic, in July 2021, by Sánchez. After being summoned several times by the president to assess the options in the face of the government crisis that he was preparing to give a boost to the Executive after the end of the Covid alarm, Sánchez He got rid of his Minister of Transport and made him resign from the Secretariat of the Organization..

In addition, the party congress in Valencia was approaching, in which a triumphant PSOE sought to recover the social democratic signs, to finish crushing Podemos from power, occupying, once again, a more targeted space. Sanchez did not give him any explanation, “nor did I ask for them”Ábalos admitted this in an interview with this newspaper shortly after.

But then, his entourage had already warned that The Valencian politician has maintained a powerful core of followers in its territorial federation. The investigations announced that Ximo Puig was about to lose the Generalitat Valenciana to the PP Carlos Mazonas it finally happened, and the abalista lobby He seemed empowered.

Perhaps that is why Ferraz kept him banned, but No one in the PSOE dared to leave him off the lists on 23-Jand even he himself campaigned for his boss’ victory.

“We haven’t spoken for a long time,” he later confessed about Sánchez. “But just as I didn’t ask why he gave me so much responsibility, I won’t do anything to hurt him“, he added, vehemently assuring that he continued to believe in the project and that “The biggest risk” for Spain was that “the right would return hand in hand with the extreme right”.

The truth is that his seat in Congress, in a corner of the chicken coop socialist, it was temporary. He had been promised a starting place in the European elections last June. In payment for services rendered, he received a bootin Brussels, where the position is much better paid than in Madrid.

But the plan went awry when the Koldo caseThe PSOE tried to finish with the former advisor to the minister, alleging that the aizkolari Navarro had “ceased to be an activist.” But successive revelations have reached the former minister, and while other former socialist leaders warn against “knows things” For now, he is limiting himself to threatening with his vote, which is crucial in Congress.