The Chains of Office

Spain’s leading political problem is the Catalonian issue, brought about by poor management and policies from Madrid over the years. Barcelona could have been a partner, but instead, it has become a vassal. As the tension built slowly up, and the threat of a unilateral declaration of independence loomed, Madrid came in swinging. Now several Catalonian politicians are in prison in Madrid, without charge. Others are in exile. They are either rebels, or political prisoners. The subject feeds upon itself and Madrid is seen as a beast.

Thursday this week turned out to be an interesting day for the courts. The Swiss have two Catalonian ‘rebels’ that Madrid urgently wants (that’s to say, they are in exile there peacefully enough), and the Spanish have Herve Falciani, the whistle-blower who walked out of HSBC in Geneva in 2008 with a long list of those who had improperly stashed their swag in offshore accounts, including more than a few Spanish politicians and captains of industry. How about a deal, the prosecutor thought, nabbing Falciani off the street in Madrid – he had come from France to give a talk at a Madrid University titled ‘When telling the truth is a wonderful thing’ on Wednesday.

The Swiss – who have Falciani pencilled in for five years behind bars for breaking the Helvetian Eleventh Commandment – didn’t have much chance to weigh the possible trade before a humble Spanish judge in a cholera of rage defied the public prosecutor for his misuse of the law, unlocked the cell door to Falciani and said in effect, ‘scram!’, but, not too far. Just in case.

At the same time in Germany, the court there decided that Carles Puigdemont, the ringleader of the Catalonian rebellion, wasn’t a rebel after all, and with what passes in Schleswig-Holstein for a merry gesture, they eased the manacles off the independence leader’s leg and, with a burning Apfelstrudel in his hand, Puigdemont was politely escorted to the prison gates. Auf Wiedersehen, said the jailer with a leer.

Meanwhile in Madrid (at the time of writing) another person of interest was holding on to her chains of office with a vice-like grip. Cristina Cifuentes had taken on the job as president of the Madrid Region just a couple of years ago offering a clean sweep after the quite horribly venal previous incumbent (currently not in prison). "The era of the corrupt has come to an end in the Madrid Community," said Cifuentes in her day.

A small news-site called El Diario recently claimed that her master’s degree from the King Juan Carlos University was a fake. She couldn’t have been studying there when she said, because she was here instead. The signatures on the document were false and so on. Very bad. Ms Cifuentes, after hiding out for a week, decided to make a statement. A lengthy one, since she is, after all, a politician. The three-hour long presentation by the president of the Madrid Community, a region that overlooks the wherewithal of six and a half million people, convinced nobody. Even El País was sceptical. ‘She convinced nobody’ it said.

So the PSOE, in the Madrid opposition along with Podemos (the fellow with a pony-tail) said they were calling for a motion of confidence. The ruling Partido Popular, (perhaps feeling a trifle uneasy) found that the fourth party in the government, Ciudadanos, would cautious support their leader. The rebellion was short by one vote. The motion would fall.

Ms Cifuentes, evidently fearing her return to Civvy Street, is remaining firm. I’m not leaving, she thundered as the PP-controlled Spanish national television turned their focus on to another subject. I know, those pesky Catalonians...

We are left with this question – ‘Why in Spain would most politicians rather die than resign?’ The answer might be that, this is all they know. In other countries, disgraced politicians blithely return to their previous occupations... here, well they often have no previous occupation...

Ms Cifuentes, for example, has been involved in politics since she was sixteen. A politician might attempt to stay on in their post, when they should resign, because they are short on moral qualities. They could find that other politicians, similarly blemished, will attempt to support their often hard to believe claims. They were hoping for an ambassadorship or a seat on the board of a major corporation.  Perhaps the problem is that our politicians think that the public are fools – and, judging by the way we pardon their corruption and gross ineptitude, perhaps they have a point.