Juan Carlos Drops By

 

It’s a subject that one would prefer to shy away from, but the Old King, Juan Carlos I of España, was briefly in his erstwhile kingdom over the past weekend. He had flown in to Vigo airport in a horribly expensive chartered jet. It was his first visit to Spain in 21 months.

He was generally given a rapturous welcome (the local daily gave him the first nine pages), and certainly so by the good folk of Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) where he went to the Club Náutico to join the regatta for the weekend. One fondly imagines that he ate mountains of caviar and drank the best champagne, but no one seems to think that such behaviour, far removed from the experience of most of his ex-subjects, was in any way inappropriate for the occasion.

And, after all, he had been in exile in Abu Dhabi for a couple of years, no doubt quietly drinking tea, weeding his garden and reading favoured bits from The Old Testament.

The journalists finally caught up with the Emeritus, and as he was setting off to Madrid on Sunday one of them thrust a microphone under the Royal nose and asked Juan Carlos what explanations he would be giving to his son. ‘About what?’ said the ex-king, as he wound up the window with a laugh.

On Monday, attention moved to the Royal Palace for what must have been a slightly frosty interview with his son – the first time they had been together in two years – followed by a luncheon (his wife Queen Sofía, just back from Miami, has tested positive for Covid and regretfully missed the meal, while Queen Letitia also decided against joining the family reunion) and then a trip to the airport with one small overnight bag (just kidding).

No press release has been issued about what went on behind the closed palace doors.

How the brief visit played with the population is down to which news-source one prefers – with everything from a clutch of flag-waving Spaniards outside the Royal Palace shouting ‘¡Viva el rey!’ on the one hand; to Alberto Garzón, the truculent leader of the Izquierda Unida, telling jounalists that ‘everyone in Spain knows he’s a crook’.

The New York Times is quoted in the Spanish media as making the point that Juan Carlos’ actions are certainly complicating the reign of Felipe VI.

Then there’s the suggestion that the Emeritus will soon be returning to Spain for another refreshing dalliance.

But, let us leave the last word with El Gran Wyoming, who has written a song to celebrate the fleeting Royal Visit.

The Andalusian Elections: What to Expect

 
The Andalusian elections are coming around, a little earlier than anticipated, to cash in on the rise in support for the Partido Popular after its latest defenestration – as the penny finally dropped that the party leader Pablo Casado was a liability while the new leader, the unpronounceable Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was a far surer bet.

The Junta de Andalucia, the regional government based firmly in Seville, is led by the capable Juanma Moreno, who currently rules the region with the support of Ciudadanos (and the blessing of Vox). He is looked on as a moderate conservative. Before Juanma won the election in December 2018, the region had been run by the PSOE-A for forty years, and corruption, nepotism, and the other sins of government were much in evidence, indeed, two of the three socialist presidents – Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán – are now awaiting confirmation of their sentences for a slew of misdeeds, led by the ERE Inquiry.

Facing Juanma Moreno PP – the certain winner short of a surprise – we find the new and improved PSOE-A led by the ex-mayor of Seville, Juan Espadas, who seems a decent sort (although, as the regional minister for housing from 2010 to 2013, he may be remembered without pleasure by those who suffered with ‘illegal properties’). Whether he is capable of bringing back home the vote is probably unlikely. The reason is that many ordinary socialists have switched either into the Podemos fraternity, or, in Andalucía, into the magic of the Vox party, which provides a type of politics which always looks good to those at the bottom: racism, flag-waving and cant.

Thus today, Vox can count on 20% of the vote. Their candidate is Mercedes Olona who is – as Wiki says – ‘known for her virulent criticism of the government of Pedro Sánchez, accusing it of "genocide" for its management of the Covid-19 pandemic or of wanting to impose the Venezuelan "chavist model" in Spain. She favours the establishment of a government of "national salvation" involving the army. She is opposed to laws on LGBT or gender violence’. A handful indeed.

The Ciudadanos party are without doubt washed up, and their 21 seats will likely be reduced to one or maybe two. Juan Marín, the capable regional minister for tourism, is their candidate.

The other contender is inelegantly named Por Andalucía: the mishmash of Izquierda Unida, Más País, Podemos and other minnows. While the lefties eventually agreed on a coordinated candidature, to be headed up by the IU politician Inmaculada Nieto, the papers from Podemos were delivered ‘a few minutes late’ (sic) to the electoral commission and there is now doubt as to whether the Podemos contingent can legally stand in the coalition or must go it alone.

The outcome for these elections on June 19th (where the 710,000 or so foreign residents of course may not vote) will likely leave the PP in the lead with somewhere around 50 seats and the PSOE-A with 32. Vox would be third with 17 and the Por Andalucía lefties with 10.

With a count of 55 needed to reach a majority, the PP will likely have to treat with Vox this time around. What will be Vox’ price?

Who Will Watch the Watchers?

 ‘The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, announced this Monday from the Moncloa, (despite it being a public holiday in Madrid), that the mobile phones of the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez and of the Minister of Defence Margarita Robles have been infected by the Pegasus program…’ La Vanguardia has the story. El Huff Post is quite excitable: ‘it is the worst case of spying during Spain’s democracy’.

The phone-spying in these cases occurred last summer. This type of phone-intrusion is not just ‘listening in’, but rather, the entire unit becomes open to inspection: photos, Whatsapp, Gmail, SMS and so on…

Did it happen, and if so, have we been told by the CNI intelligence agency just now of something occurring last year to deflect attention (or even blame) from the Catalonian spy-issue? Conspiracy theories abound for the time being, as the Audiencia Nacional (wiki) investigates.

It also appears that anything up to 1,400 phones may have been compromised in Spain.

Indeed, the system could likely be operating all over Europe, as an inquiry begins in the European Parliament into the use of this illegal software.

What was happening last year as the Spanish President’s phone was being examined? During the May and June 2021 break-ins, the Moroccan issue over Ceuta and Melilla was much in the public eye – and Morocco, Bless it, is very friendly with Israel.

So, who else might be in line for spying on the President? The secret service, allied in some way with those of a conservative inclination? The Americans, allied through Israel with the Moroccans? The Russians (flavour of the month)? The fellow upstairs who is always on his computer?

Maybe it’s all just a trick to deflect the inquiry away from the Catalonian phone-taps?

Which brings us to Catalan News here: ‘The University of Toronto-based tech crime research group Citizen Lab is investigating whether another 150 people could have also been targeted with Pegasus spyware in the wake of the Catalangate revelations, the online newspaper El Confidencial reported on Saturday. Pegasus spyware allows people to control phones remotely by gaining access to a device's memory and activating cameras and microphones…’

As Margarita Robles the Minister of Defence (the minister in charge of the secret service, the CNI) was herself allegedly spied upon, one again questions who is responsible, and who is in charge. The CNI has the Pegasus spy-ware – they have admitted as much – and, well, it would seem likely that they would use it, to Protect the State, even from itself.