Posted on October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 in Published articles

Deutsche Welle: Spanish corruption highlights political paralysis

This article was originally published in Deutsche Welle

Several former high-ranking People’s Party (PP) officials are facing trial in the country’s largest corruption case since the party’s foundation in 1976. Santiago Saez reports from Madrid.

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Posted on October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 in TDIS

The Day in Spain #27: The trial of the year

Yesterday I had to rush out and couldn’t post this one. The biggest story of the day, hands down, was the kick off of the Gürtel case trial. This is the case that has changed Spain’s political landscape, fueled Podemos and Ciudadanos rise, created the deadlock and, as a longer time side effect, destroyed PSOE. The trial will only end in the Spring, so I’ll be posting updates from time to time.

I wrote an article on it for Deutsche Welle where I explain all that. It will possibly be published today, so I’ll be sure to update you all!

Corruption

Gürtel case kicks off, with 37 defendants, including several high ranking PP officers. This is the largest corruption case ever to hit a Spanish political party (not in money, but in geographical and amount of people involved)

Economy

22.800 new unemployed in September. This is a normal tendency, as Spain’s tourism summer season comes to an end.

Posted on October 3, 2016October 3, 2016 in TDIS

The Day in Spain #26: Rajoy – the happy wanderer

The talk today in Spain is about Rajoy’s ever-growing position of power in front of PSOE. After the socialist hara-kiri last weekend, which ended with Pedro Sanchez’s resignation, PSOE leaders know that the chances of doing well in a third round of elections are now close to nil, so they are now hoping that Rajoy allows them to abstain (although the president of Extremadura, PSOE’s Fernánde Vara has said, to everyone’s hilarity, that “PP should be scared of PSOE, which could beat them”).

On the other side of the table, Rajoy can now play cat-and-mouse with the socialists. Once again, Mariano’s famous strategy of “doing nothing-saying nothing” has worked wonders, as his enemies crumble on their own before his indifferece. Like Homer Simpson to Frank Grimes, he’s the happy wanderer, just merrily strolling through life and government without a worry in the world. What a guy.