The Minister of Social Rights and spokesperson for the Frente Amplio campaign, Pablo Bustinduy, has endorsed the notion that “everything that has to be investigated” should be investigated regarding the Urda (Toledo) rail disaster, after the European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened proceedings for a possible fraud in the use of EU funds intended for the modernization of the high-speed lines.
“Well, let it be investigated everything that has to be investigated, of course,” the minister said in an interview on “La 1 de TVE,” collected by Europa Press, stressing that “quite a few reports” had already been known coming from the Ministry of Transport. In this context, he directed his criticisms at the passing through this department of the former minister José Luis Ábalos “among others,” in reference to the latest arrests made in the “Koldo” case.
At the same time, the Frente Amplio leader demanded that the alleged PP payments to former adviser to Ábalos, Koldo García, also be clarified. “But what is this? Who are these people? What do they do?” he asked, in a resolute manner.
In addition, he claimed that the formations of the alternative left have accumulated 15 years in charge of different administrations without having recorded “a single case of corruption, never.” “Lots of mistakes. But confusing loyalties, never,” he added.
Calls Santiago Abascal a “mamporrero” of the employers’ association
In another matter, Bustinduy launched attacks against the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, whom he described as the “mamporrero” of the employers’ association after his criticisms of the call for a general strike on November 11, set at the start of the election campaign. In that context, Vox’s leader warned the majority unions with an “We are mule drivers, and we will meet on the road” during a pre-campaign event held this Thursday.
In response to those words, the minister replied that the employers’ association “has always had its lackeys” and that “Vox behaves as what it is: the political arm of big capital, of the economic elites of this country.”
Along the same lines, following the demand by business organizations that the next increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage be addressed by the future Executive, Bustinduy recalled that the SMI will already “rise by 5.3% before the elections” and assured that the next cabinet will continue increasing it because “it will be a left-wing government.”
Therefore, the holder of the Social Rights portfolio has accused the employers of “sell-outs” and “sell-patriots” and has urged the working class to “think in terms of their class interests”.