Mónica García indicated that her team had been “in shock” for days. During a press conference held this Monday, the Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid assured that her party “has not received any complaint or any concrete testimony, neither present nor past, against [Íñigo] Errejon. He has also not been aware of episodes similar to those reported in recent days,” said the Minister of Health, who appeared alongside the party’s regional and municipal spokespersons, Manuela Bergerot and Rita Maestre.
This is the first time that a Más Madrid spokesperson has given explanations since the resignation of Errejón, one of the party’s founders, last Thursday. And after the stories of some women became known, such as that of actress Elisa Mouliaá, who said in a police report that the former parliamentarian had locked her in a room during a party, she came out his penis in front of her and touched her without her consent.
“It is true that we thought he had personal problems,” García explained, while specifying that the party thought these problems “were of another nature.” And added: “Several people tried to help him on several occasions and we always believed that his personal situation could improve.”
On several occasions, García affirmed that the party was not aware of the “very serious episodes” published in recent days. “But now, and I repeat it clearly and insistently, no one, I repeat, no one, no activist, no position, no worker of Más Madrid was aware of the terrible accusations, of the denunciations of attacks, of mistreatment and sexual violence that we are learning about. in recent days”, García insisted. In the same vein, the Minister of Health declared that if they had “known that it was an aggressor”, they would not have recommended a healing procedure, they would have gone “directly to the police station”.
“Of course we did not know that their personal relationships were marked by abuse of power, misogyny, humiliation and humiliation,” said Maestre, who also wanted to reduce his party’s responsibility in the accusations published against Errejón. The municipal spokesperson for Más Madrid insisted that her party had “no criminal record, no complaints, no rumors or knowledge of any sexual or psychological assault of this type”.
After reading the complaints filed on the networks and published in some media, such as Sara’s story on elDiario.es or Mouliaá’s police report, Bergerot recognized that the party’s mechanisms had not worked. “It is clear that we have all failed, as a party and as a society,” the Más Madrid spokesperson told the Madrid Assembly. However, he recognized that the events revealed in recent days are “important enough” for the party to take “the time it takes to think”.
Of course, García also wanted to welcome the response that his party and Sumar gave after learning of the “seriousness of the accusations” against his former training partner, emphasizing that they fired him, removed him from political spaces and placed ” in the table » the information they had received.
Spokespersons for Más Madrid also denounced the actions of deputy Loreto Arenillas, whom the party dismissed on Friday after accusing her of concealing an accusation against Errejón in 2023. Regarding this issue, Maestre stressed that his former party colleague had acted at that time “on his own initiative” and had intervened “behind the backs of the organization, the executive and the party”.
The facts for which Arenillas was fired date back to an anonymous complaint published on social networks in June 2023, between the regional campaign and the general elections of that year. In a Twitter thread, later deleted, a woman accused the former deputy of touching his buttocks and Arenillas of then covering up the episode, trying to “mediate” so that what had happened past is not made public. An episode which did not become public at the time, but which some recovered immediately after the resignation of Sumar’s spokesperson.
These accusations reached the management of Más Madrid when they were published on the social network, as García admitted. At that time, the party leadership spoke with the two people mentioned in the thread, Errejón and Arenillas, and both “minimized the aggression,” the Minister of Health clarified today.
“The subsequent explanations that he gave us, we now see in other events that they were insufficient, that they were ambiguous, and we accept the error of not having gone further in our evaluations, of accepted his version as good,” Maestre added about the version Errejón gave him of these events.
After these statements, Arenillas reacted on Twitter by emphasizing that she had informed the party leadership of the content of the anonymous complaint published on the networks at the time. The former regional representative assured that she had communicated these facts both to the organizational secretary of Más Madrid at the time, to the current spokesperson for the party, Manuela Bergerot, and to the secretary of feminisms, Cristina Castillo . She also took advantage of this publication to point out that she was “totally unaware of the testimonies and attacks against women” which were revealed.
“Far from concealing or hiding anything, far from minimizing the facts, I was available to the director of communications to explain it publicly if necessary,” he adds, in his text. However, Arenillas calls for the cover-up charges against her to be investigated, “independently and with the presumption of innocence,” reports Inigo Aduriz.
In her publication, the former representative of Más Madrid asks to exercise her right to “defend” what she describes as “abuse of authority on the part of the party leadership”. Alleging this reason, he maintains that his preventive suspension or the request for his resignation must be requested by the guarantees commission, “the only body authorized to do so”, he adds. He therefore announces that he will report a “serious violation” of the statutes to this body and warns that his dismissal could end up in court.
