The Frente Amplio candidate for the 29N elections, Ada Colau, has said that she would have demanded tougher conditions of the PSOE regarding the fight against corruption than those raised by Sumar as a result of the Koldo plot, in which former socialist leaders Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos were implicated.
In addition, she has emphasized that if the alleged irregularities affected the PSOE in a structural way and were not limited to specific episodes, that would be sufficient grounds to propose the break-up of the current coalition Government.
In an interview on the podcast 'The wild project', collected by Europa Press, she recalled that she always defends “zero tolerance” against corruption and that, in a scenario like the one experienced during this term of office, she would have demanded “more anti-corruption measures or more explanations” in response to facts that she considers especially serious.
The Frente Amplio candidate for La Moncloa has explained, when asked about the case of Santos Cerdán, that Sumar already made it clear that “no one suspected of corruption can be in this government” and she has recalled that the former Secretary of Organization and also former minister Ábalos “was immediately removed”.
At the same time, she has pointed out that it is essential to analyze “at every moment” and depending on the specific circumstances when making decisions or when assessing the possibility of a break-up of the Executive.
“There is no single answer” to the scandals
Colau has explained that “it depends on whether there is a specific case where it is very individualized in one or two people. These two people are immediately removed and zero tolerance, and that they be investigated, convicted whatever it is. Another thing is that there is something more generalized, that is, they are two different situations,” thereby distinguishing between isolated conduct and systemic problems.
For this reason, she has defended the need to adopt well-considered decisions because “there is no single answer” when corruption cases appear that affect the PSOE, and she has insisted on properly weighing the political consequences of each scenario.
In this regard, she has argued that “committing the entire action of a government where good things are being done, like raising the minimum wage, a labor reform, improving care... Suspending all that government activity because there has been a case of corruption that you could have removed and gotten out of government immediately, those are two things. You have to weigh it on the scales on each occasion, you have to effectively assess what weighs more”.
Zapatero, the gifts and exemplary conduct
Regarding the situation of former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is being investigated in the Plus Ultra case, he has acknowledged that it may be legal for him to keep jewelry in his office as gifts from Saudi Arabia, although he has stressed that she "doesn't like it".
He added that "there is no one close to me who has it that way—having jewelry for more than one million euros. Then I tell you, in politics it's no longer just a matter of what is judicial or what is corruption; it's that what we said about having to set an example, that's it," and he has emphasized that a "politician has to be moral".
Finally, he has denounced that left-wing leaders, including herself when she was in charge of the Barcelona City Council, have been victims of "lawfare' and they filed a couple of dozen complaints that were all dismissed, which, in his view, shows the partisan use of the judicial path against certain public officeholders.