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TOP Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar has come out to bat for embattled prime minister Pedro Sanchez, describing allegations of rampant corruption in government ranks as an ‘orgy of fake news’.
The Academy Award and Goya Award-winning filmmaker joined almost a hundred public figures in signing a letter which rallied against the ‘conservative offensive’ against Sanchez, whose Socialist-led government is mired in allegations of sleaze.
Signatories of the letter include actors Ana Belen and Joan Manuel Serrat and musicians Victor Manuel and Miguel Rios. Also included are former Socialist Party (PSOE), Ministers Manuel Chaves Magdalena Alvarez Joan Clos.
The message was also supported by the former Catalan president Jose Montilla as well writers Luis Garcia Montero (left) and Rosa Montero (right).
The letter states that “a very large part of the media, including social networks, has unleashed a orgy fake news and half-truths to create a political climate unbearable in comparison with the current situation in the nation.”
It continues: “The attack from all conservatives or reactionaries on the progressive coalition and its President is more akin a plot to overthrow an legitimate government than it is to political criticism in democratic system.”
READ MORE: EXPLAINER: The Montoro case has topped the charts in Spain’s corruption scandal top ten – but what is it about?
The text also argues that ‘progress made by the coalition government in economic and social matters’ receives limited press coverage, which instead focuses on ‘attacks on migrants and the vandalism of left-wing party headquarters, which are reminiscent of the fascist attacks of the past’.
The letter also attacks the judiciary, reading: “Sectors of the judiciary are organising rallies and strikes, outside the law, against laws passed by Congress that they do not like – amnesty, justice reform – when the latter has not yet been approved.
“Judges, magistrates and the opposition are opening lengthy investigations with thin evidence. The opposition is delegitimizing the Constitutional Court as it disagrees with its amnesty ruling.”
Santos Cerdan – Sanchez’s former right hand man – was arrested in connection with a larger investigation into kickbacks for state contracts. Santos Cerdan is suspected of bribery as well as criminal conspiracy, influence peddling, and a variety of other charges.
Jose Luis Abalos was a former minister and is also named in this case.
READ MORE EXPLAINER: What are the many corruption scandals engulfing Spain’s Pedro Sanchez – and can he survive?
The letter signed by Almodovar in response to the allegations states: [Abalos and Cerdan] are serious and denote gross errors…However, it is unacceptable that a democratically elected government should fall because of a police report before a fully fair trial has been held in which the responsibility of the prime minister or the affected party is established.”
A new scandal has hit the Partido Popular, an opposition party.
A judge has charged Cristobal Montoro, a former finance minister under the government of Mariano Rajoy, and 27 co-conspirators for ‘influence-peddling’.
Montoro was accused of using his position at the top of the ministry to head a network of people who rewrote taxes laws to the benefit of gas companies for cash, which came in the form consulting fees.
Prosecutors estimate the scheme delivered a fiscal windfall – and deprived the Treasury – of roughly €2.2 billion in 2012 alone, while five major gas groups are said to have saved at least €51 million over the following decade.
A firm owned by Montoro is alleged to have acted between 2014 and 2018 as a middleman for major gas companies, and officials that Montoro was friendly with in the Treasury Ministry he ran.
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