The PSOE has postponed its first meeting with JxCAT to this Saturday, December 2, to fulfill the investiture pacts that allowed Pedro Sánchez to renew his mandate, as confirmed by sources familiar with the contacts between the two parties.. The meeting had to be held in November, but both the socialists and the independence party already recognized that the planned calendar, which specified that the first meeting was going to be in November, was going to be missed.. This first contact between the two parties will be in Geneva (Switzerland), to maintain the context agreed with those of Carles Puigdemont, which gave an international dimension to these conversations..

The Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, acknowledged this Tuesday that the meeting would no longer take place in November, although JxCAT had been dragging its feet on the matter for days.. The meeting is expected to have a discreet format and not even the international verifier will be made public, as El Confidencial reported.. A photo of this first meeting is not planned either and it is not known who will take part in each match, although Junts always floated the idea that Puigdemont was going to attend..

The agenda of the meeting is unknown. But the date of December 2nd indicates that JxCAT is aiming for its meeting to be before the one held by Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès to reactivate the Government-Generalitat dialogue table for this legislature. The independence movement now lives on these small details.

JxCAT has been quick to clarify that the climate with the PSOE is good and that the legislature is not in danger at all. An example is given that the parliamentary group, headed by Míriam Nogueras, will chair some commissions in Congress, something that is being negotiated at this time.. But that is part of parliamentary routine.

That is, neither PSOE nor JxCAT want to send an image of deterioration in their relationship in the first steps of the legislature.. Less complicated for the socialists, who have already swallowed the toad of negotiating with Puigdemont, and more complicated for the Junts sovereigntists, who had placed emphasis on small details, such as the fact that the meeting was going to be in November, to make it more acceptable. to their voters the costs of the pact.

Among these costs, it stands out that what Pedro Sánchez stated at the beginning of the negotiation has been fulfilled: investiture through amnesty. The independence movement always assured that it would also achieve many other things, but in practice JxCAT has only achieved one dialogue table, which it calls the negotiation table and which is between parties..

Puigdemont's right-hand man, MEP Toni Comín, assured SER that the real political negotiation on the future of Catalonia will take place at the table that Junts and the PSOE have agreed upon and not at that of the Government with the Generalitat..

Avoid controversies

The Generalitat chose this Tuesday to avoid controversies with Comín and the Waterloo environment. The Generalitat refuses to turn the negotiation with the Government into a competition with JxCAT and in this sense has downplayed the importance of the PSOE meeting with Junts in Geneva before Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès do. “This is not a race, the order is not important”, replied the spokeswoman for the Government, Patrícia Plaja, in the press conference after the Executive Council.

Plaja acknowledged doubts about the will of the Sánchez Government to comply with the agreements. “Little trust, ability to enforce agreements completely. If the agreements do not advance, the legislature will not advance, just as the president said,” he warned.. But the reality is that neither JxCAT nor the PSOE can let the Government fall because then they would lose the jackpot of what was negotiated: the amnesty for the independence movement..

Bilateral commissions

Plaja acknowledges that work is being done to set an agenda for this meeting between the presidents of Catalonia and Spain, but there is no set calendar because, among other things, the international agenda of both senior officials is intense at the moment.. Without going any further, Aragonès is currently on an official trip to Korea.

“Everything has to be done, there is still no calendar. But we have got our act together. Everything that this Government had to do is being done,” declared Patrícia Plaja, who denied any partisan interest, as MEP Toni Comín has accused.. The only objective is to achieve “the best results for citizens.”.

The Generalitat has approved updating its representatives in the various tables of the bilateral commissions with the State to materialize some of the investiture agreements that have been reached with the new Executive. The objective is to prepare for the “new political stage” to which Pere Aragonès referred last week. Thus, the Government puts three councilors in charge of negotiating the additions to the amnesty: Laura Vilagrà (Presidency), Natalia Mas (Economy) and Ester Capella (Territori).

The Government does not plan to negotiate with Podemos the general budgets of the State independently. If this intention is maintained, the team led by María Jesús Montero at the head of the Ministry of Finance and Public Function will not sit down with Ione Belarra separately.. In the socialist wing of the Executive they understand that they are part of Sumar and any conversation will have to be with the person designated by Yolanda Díaz, as head of the coalition. This gesture, long demanded by the purple ones, will not occur and the Moncloa also considers that this will not put the 2024 PGE at risk..

At Moncloa they are convinced that there will be PGE in the first weeks of 2024, after a brief extension of the current ones caused by the late formation of the new Executive of Pedro Sánchez. They do not believe that the purple ones are going to be an obstacle and insist that there will be no differential treatment within Sumar. “They are not going to vote with PP and Vox,” they affirm to scare away the possibility that Ione Belarra uses her five deputies to knock down the accounts of a Government of which they are not part, but which they have facilitated by supporting the investiture of the socialist leader. This is a possibility that has been planned for weeks and that worries the Moncloa in the face of the resounding divorce of Podemos and Sumar.

Montero was part of the investiture negotiations and appeared at the signing of some of the agreements that most depend on the budget, such as those of BNG, Canary Coalition or the PNV. This participation in the previous conversations allows the Sevillian politician to keep in mind what commitments with the PSOE partners should be reflected in the budget.. But the accounts will be, above all, a development of the coalition pact between PSOE and Sumar, the result of a negotiation concluded in the wee hours of the morning by Montero herself and Nacho Álvarez.. It is paradoxical that the magenta negotiator has fallen victim to the war between Yolanda Díaz's team and Ione Belarra's team.. The former purple leader fell (and left the first political line) after the vice president offered Podemos that Álvarez would be his representative in the Government. The response was a loud slam of the door..

The Minister of Finance will not be able to negotiate new accounts with Álvarez, something in which she had experience after the first coalition legislature. And it is not clear who will be his replacement as representative of Sumar, but it seems clear that it will not be from Podemos. It must be taken into account that Montero must combine several interests in his PGE project in a more complex economic context than in previous years, both politically and economically.. The different ministries have until December 11 to send their spending forecast to the Treasury. And then it must include the aspirations of the investiture partners. And that is where Podemos wants to play a leading role now that it is not part of the Government..

The ghost of the departure of the purples from the Sumar parliamentary group is still there, with the European elections on the horizon and the Galician and Basque elections in the middle. The problem for the purple ones lies in the loss of economic resources that would mean becoming independent from the coalition with which they ran for election.. In that case, the socialist wing of the Government would open the door to a differentiated negotiation, as explained a few days ago by Ferraz.. As long as that does not happen, the interlocutor is Yolanda Díaz or whoever decides Galician politics.

The thesis they use in Podemos is that the PSOE is more comfortable with Sumar because it represents a less combative left than theirs.. The political roadmap approved by the purples weeks before Sánchez's inauguration defended the practice applied by the purples during the last legislature, which consisted of making public dissent within the cabinet as a form of pressure on the socialists.. Those from Ione Belarra defend that without their participation the most “ambitious” policies would not have been approved and now that is at risk.

The pressure of Podemos

This disagreement on strategy is filled with a series of public disagreements. A few days ago, Pablo Iglesias assured in an interview in Diari de Barcelona that Díaz had worked “to destroy Podemos”, but it is just one of the darts that the purple ones have thrown at the vice president. But there are those who consider, within Sumar, that the Galician “has earned” some of that criticism. A source from the coalition expressed days before the formation of the Government that it was Pedro Sánchez who could ultimately facilitate the entry of Podemos into the cabinet in pursuit of greater tranquility on his left..

That did not happen, Yolanda Díaz chose to leave the purple ones out of their ministerial quota and now the problem has worsened due to the pressure they maintain. And that now causes a new headache for Pedro Sánchez in the design of his new PGE, which already has several obstacles in the way. The main one is the possibility of a blockade in the Senate, since the step prior to the approval of the accounts is to set the stability objectives, coupled with the spending ceiling.. The Budget Stability Law grants the Upper House the right of veto, which allows the PP to exercise its absolute majority to block the processing of the accounts. Montero has a plan to get around this traffic jam, but he has not revealed it yet, beyond putting pressure on Genoa to clear the accounts, which would also have effects for the autonomous communities, the majority in popular hands..

The decision to remove Iñigo Urkullu from the Lendakari candidacy in the next Basque regional elections, revealed by El Correo de Bilbao last Friday, entails a substantial change in the strategy of nationalism for the coming years.. The same day that the news was known – which the EBB of the PNV intended to communicate today, Monday after a meeting of its executive with a friendly photograph with the still president of the Basque Government -, Andoni Ortuzar met in Sabin Extea with the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, to sign a coordination agreement and thus create an alternative axis in the Congress of Deputies: compared to the 13 seats of ERC and EH Bildu, the 12 of Junts and PNV. The parliamentary spokespersons Aitor Esteban and Míriam Nogueras, among others, participated in the meeting..

The purpose of both parties is, furthermore, to accumulate their respective forces with two objectives: to demand that Pedro Sánchez fully comply with the agreements signed by both with the PSOE and to balance the social, economic and fiscal aspects of the agreement between the socialists and Sumar, members of the coalition government. The Catalan independentists and the Basque nationalists, although forming part of the majority of Sánchez's investiture, are the direct adversaries of the Republicans of Junqueras and the radical abertzales of Otegi, and, at the same time, they disagree with the progressive recipes in certain extremes. of the agreement between Díaz and Sánchez himself. The leaders of the Basque and Catalan formations are characterized by a deep distrust of Pedro Sánchez, who has come to describe himself as “invincible”, a circumstance that has facilitated the agreement signed last Friday.. Specifically, in the PNV there is the disturbing feeling that Sánchez would be willing “to deceive us again”.

Urkullu, incompatible with Junts and Puigdemont

The replacement of Iñigo Urkullu by Imanol Pradales in the candidacy for Lehendakaritza responds, mainly but not only, to the incompatibility of the president of the Basque Government with Carles Puigdemont and Junts, after they clashed in October 2017 when Urkullu tried to have the then president of the Generalitat to call elections in Catalonia, avoiding the unilateral declaration of independence and, as a consequence, the application by the Government of Mariano Rajoy of the measures protected by article 155 of the Constitution. The Lendakari's intervention failed and relations with Puigdemont and his party froze. Urkullu – a witness in the oral hearing of the trial against the leaders of the process before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court – deposited all the documentation about his mediation in the Sabino Arana Foundation in Bilbao and in the Poblet Monastery in Tarragona.

The journey that the PNV intends to begin in the company of Junts is, therefore, not compatible with Iñigo Urkullu, who is also not judged suitable for a face-to-face confrontation with EH Bildu. The results of Basque nationalism in the last two elections – the municipal and provincial elections in May and the general elections in July – have been discouraging in their struggle with the Otegi coalition.. In the first, the PNV lost more than 85,000 votes, and in the second, more than 100,000. The strategists of Sabin Etxea, with Andoni Ortuzar at the helm, understand that nationalist radicalization is necessary to stand up to Bildu and maintain the presidency of the Basque Government and refresh Urkullu's government management burdened by the deterioration of public services – especially , health and education—, establish better relations with unions, such as ELA, prone to calling strikes that have been very frequent in recent years, reactivate the reputation of the Ertzaintza and forget about some cases of corruption.

The dismissal of the Lendakari – because it has been an abrupt departure for Urkullu, a politician with a long career in the PNV whose executives, first in Vizcaya and then the national one (EBB), he presided over – also has an explanation in the tradition of Basque nationalism: The two-headed organization does not tolerate excessive continuity in public positions.. If Urkullu had repeated his candidacy, he would have surpassed the political longevity of his predecessors Garaikoetxea, Ardanza and Ibarretxe.. On the other hand, his political weight, incomparable to that of his successor, Imanol Pradales, disappears in favor of Andoni Ortuzar, who with this movement becomes the only strong man of Basque nationalism..

The script for a Basque 'procés'

The PNV has thus given a Copernican turn to its relations with Junts – Ortuzar has visited Puigdemont in Waterloo several times, although only once with publicity – and has disdained the proposal for a Constitutional Convention to reinterpret the Constitution that the Lendakari launched in an article in opinion with which El País opened its August 31 edition to four columns (“Urkullu asks for a territorial pact to reinterpret the Constitution”). Ignoring the hesitant proposals of the president of the Basque Government, the EBB has waited for Sánchez to secure the support of the other parties to sign his own with the general secretary of the PSOE, although without knowing in detail what he has achieved with EH Bildu. And the wording of the entente tries to ensure that the socialist does not escape from his commitments as he did in the previous legislature, according to the PNV version.

The Ortuzar-Sánchez pact, signed on November 10, constitutes, according to the sources consulted in the PNV, the “script of a sovereignty process” in the Basque style, without “ruptures”, because Basque society “is not Catalan , nor has she gone through the Basque woman's traumatic experience.”. The agreement provides for counterparts such as the national recognition of Euskadi, complete bilaterality between Vitoria and Madrid, with the establishment of a table that will meet semi-annually with the obligatory presence of the Lendakari and Pedro Sánchez, a guarantee of forality in all laws. that may affect the Basque Autonomous Community to preserve its powers, the right to previously examine the decree-laws of the Council of Ministers, which are of a restrictive nature, the protection of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime, which must maintain its current wording (if modified, it must be with the prior approval of the PNV), the reform of certain legal texts (Workers' Statute, Law of Bases of Local Regime, Law of Ports of General Interest), participation in the negotiation of international treaties, Basque presence in international organizations and the European Union, commitments related to Navarra, thus making the PNV a valid interlocutor of the interests of the regional community, and several transfers, including that of Security management Social, despite the fact that the Basque Country has a deficit of more than 4,000 million. The professor of Administrative Law at the University of Zaragoza, Juan Pemán, has published on the Giménez Abad Foundation website a legal analysis of this exorbitant agreement that he considers “a broadside to our democratic institutional system and the general interests of the country.”.

Pradales for Urkullu and Otegi for a new candidate

The agreement between the PNV and the PSOE forms a confederal Euskadi because, in addition to the provisions listed, it also provides for an extension of the economic agreement and its execution is intended at the same pace as that signed by Jordi Turull and Santos Cerdán, including a consultation that in Catalonia would be articulated through the activation of article 92 of the Constitution, but in the Basque Country it could be materialized through the endorsement of a new Statute that the PNV has not managed to succeed in the Parliament of Vitoria in the current legislature and that, according to everyone the indications, it would conclude immediately with an electoral call in the month of March 2024.

Events have been precipitated: the EBB of the PNV, after the information reported on Friday by El Correo about Urkullu, called last Saturday the meeting scheduled for Monday and proposed the candidacy of Imanol Pradales Gil. The current Biscayan provincial deputy for Territory and Infrastructure, doctor in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Deusto, has been a member of the PNV since he was very young, a native of Santurtzi (1975), resident in Portugalete, the left bank of the Nervión, a territory of strong leftist implantation, and belongs to a generation of PNV managers who did not live through the most intense periods of Basque politics. Imanol Pradales, a Basque speaker and with a very good personal relationship with Iñigo Urkullu, lacks a public profile and is only known in the internal circles of the party, where he is valued for his intervention in reflection and debate initiatives.. It also has a good image in business sectors. Now he must be supported by the party assemblies without it being likely that his candidacy will be rejected..

At the event held yesterday in Sukarrieta (Vizcaya), commemorating the 120th anniversary of the death of Sabino Arana, founder of the PNV, both the lendakari and the president of the EBB showed apparent harmony and supported Imanol Pradales. Iñigo Urkullu offered all his help to his possible successor, while Andoni Ortuzar took care of defusing the situation created. “Our only president is the Lendakari, not Sánchez,” he stated..

In certain areas of the organization, however, the way in which the EBB has gotten rid of the lendakari has not been liked at all, although it is traditional for the farewells of the presidents of the Basque Government to be unfriendly.. Urkullu, however, will adhere to the party's strict discipline. He will call the elections when the EBB considers it appropriate and will refrain from any statement that may express discomfort or displeasure.. Andoni Ortuzar has the challenge of convincing the militancy of the success of the replacement in the electoral lists. The success of this operation is decisive for his continuity at the head of EBB.

With the departure of Urkullu the chapter that opened after the farewell of Josu Jon Imaz from the presidency of the EBB (2007) closes.. The current CEO of Repsol – also from the Lendakari generation, of whom he is a friend, and Ortuzar – marked in a letter (Bet on the future) the course of a more contemporary and inclusive nationalism, overcoming the stage strongly marked by Xabier Arzalluz, and in conflict with the radicalism of the Guipuzcoan Joseba Egibar. It seems that the moderate Imaz's roadmap has expired.

Bildu's candidacy

Although the replacement of the president of the Basque Government has not caught EH Bildu on the back foot, it does force it to make a move. It is expected that today its general coordinator, Arnaldo Otegi, will announce that he will not be the candidate in the next Basque elections, in which the coalition has the possibility of surpassing the PNV. To achieve this, Otegi is not the most suitable leader. The radical abertzales will opt for a woman from Pradales' generation. The names of Nerea Kortajarena and Oihana Etxebarrieta, the two Basque parliamentarians, without connections with the period of activity and immediately after the terrorist organization ETA, are being considered..

Bildu still has a pending account with Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE. He hopes that with his votes and those of the PSN, a motion of censure against the mayor of Pamplona, Cristina Ibarrola, of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro, will prosper, and the mayor will be, once again, as between 2015 and 2019, his councilor, Joseba Asiron.. For the Abertzale coalition “it would be very important” for the “PSOE's commitment to Bildu” to be reflected in this “gesture” precisely at this moment, when Euskadi has already entered a clearly pre-electoral phase and activates the PNV's agreement with Sánchez, in company and coordination with Puigdemont and Junts, to achieve, in fact, a confederal relationship with Madrid. It is, according to the description of an exburukide, a process, but “Basque style” and “more effective, less eccentric, because it is the historical moment. We will not have another one like this.”.

In Andalusia there is a lack of doctors. It is one of the reasons given by the Andalusian Government to explain the saturation in health centers and hospitals, where waiting lists have lengthened in the last year.. Professional groups share the argument and also warn that the problem will get worse in the coming years..

If it is already difficult to fill positions in some areas, it will be practically impossible when a massive replacement has to be found.. 35% of active Andalusian doctors are over 55 years old, so more than a third of Andalusian professionals will retire over the next decade. The data forces Andalusia, like the rest of Spain, to urgently train new doctors. And that determination has caused one of the controversies of the week in the community.

The Loyola University of Seville started this week a new degree in Medicine in the middle of the course. On Tuesday, the private entity received the approval of the Governing Council of the Board and only 24 hours later it summoned the 60 students of the first class to its facilities.. Many came from other careers in the health field and even from other universities in Spain, where they were able to access Medicine in September. However, they decided to return to Andalusia to start classes the next day at the new faculty, located in Dos Hermanas (Seville)..

There is no time to lose in a course that began at the end of November, almost three months behind the rest of the degrees.. The decision, “unprecedented and exceptional”, has been criticized by all the rectors of the Andalusian public universities, since it will worsen “the quality of the education received” by future doctors.. Loyola, however, has promised an intensive course, practically without pause, to bring its students up to date..

The explanations of this private university have not convinced the rectors of the public university, who also question the legality of starting the course without obtaining approval from the State.. “It is not legally viable,” they stated in a forceful statement..

The Andalusian Minister of Universities himself, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, stated that the start of classes was “premature”, since Loyola still does not have the mandatory endorsement of the Council of Ministers and the consequent publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE). ).

🔵Communication from the Association of Andalusian Public Universities (AUPA) of absolute rejection of the escalation of war that is taking place in the Middle East and its resounding condemnation of the attacks suffered by the civilian population pic.twitter.com/l50KYLhm4V

— Pablo de Olavide (@pablodeolavide) November 23, 2023

The private university defends the legality of the operation and recalls the urgency to “meet the demand for professionals” and “avoid the flight of young talent from Andalusia”.

As explained by the Department of Universities, the career of Medicine is, today, the most in demand in the community.. With a cut-off grade that reaches 13.54 in Seville, the province where this private degree will also be taught, only the students with the best grades can access the degree..

The new degree in Medicine, the first private degree in Andalusia, has become the most expensive at the entire Loyola University: the first year alone will cost 14,000 euros for each of the students in the first promotion. There are 60 young people chosen after passing an admission test carried out in April of last year, even before completing the selectivity exam.. Up to 700 candidates came to take this test.

And the MIR?

Given the demand of students, the Government of Spain has already announced the financing of new places in public universities to alleviate the “deficit” and “strengthen the National Health System”. However, the communities have also been demanding the expansion and flexibility of places offered for the MIR, so that there do not end up being graduates who are left out of the system and unfilled specialties.. Throughout Spain, 4,000 graduates were left without a MIR place this year, to which some 12,000 candidates applied for a total of 8,000 positions..

In any case, despite passing the test, dozens of health workers opted for another path. In Andalusia, of the 1,051 doctors who finished the MIR this year, 37 did not join and 13 resigned. Many of them had vacancies for family and community medicine, one of the specialties where the most doctors are needed.. Students prefer specialization in hospitals and the most difficult positions to fill represent an even greater problem in the medium term. According to data from the Andalusian Ministry of Health, of the 6,800 retirements planned in the coming years, 2,900 will be family doctors.

In this report by Hector G. Barcelona, several professional associations deny that the opening of new Medicine courses is the solution to the problem, especially at a time when the offer of MIR places once again exceeds that of undergraduate degrees.. “We do not need more doctors [with a career], which we have in excess, but rather specialists in some specific geographical areas,” the experts explain..

In the case of Andalusia, family doctors, anesthetists, neurologists and psychiatrists are needed. These are specialties in which there is no staff to cover the casualties, which is why the Board has been demanding a modification or relaxation of the criteria for the accreditation of new teaching units in the MIR.. In family medicine, for example, Andalusia will call for 434 places: it is an insufficient number to respond to demand, but it is the limit allowed by the State.

The week that opens the legislature summons the King to the opening of the parliamentary session on Wednesday, but also attributes him a representative role in the presentation of the Cerecedo award to Carlos Alsina this Monday.

The speeches that both are going to give are of interest, even more so when the second season of Frankenstein houses the pretension and expectation of revenge against the less sympathetic or affected press..

It has spread in the Moncloa that the dissenting media were about to ruin Sánchez's renewal in office. And the opportunity for revenge or a purge has been established, not only to punish the hostile scoundrels, but to neutralize them in the coming years and avoid new shocks in the…2027 elections..

The procedure does not require too much imagination.. The information discrimination with which the Government rewards some media and sanctions others predisposes the same criterion of advertising investment. There will be media blessed with the Administration's commercial campaigns, as well as exposed to the greatest political pressures and sacrificed in an exemplary way to institutional advertising..

The press is cleaner when it is less dependent on a Government, but a Government cannot and should not dissect the media based on the degree of meekness or bravery with which they react to political events and controversial decisions..

The President of the Government knows that the press is fragile with respect to new information paradigms and with respect to the viability of business models. And it has come to be agreed in Moncloa that it is appropriate to pressure and execute not only groups with a conservative reputation that are considered innocuous and irrecoverable, but also independent journalists who disagree with the glorification of Sanchismo.. Identify them, point them out, mention their names to expose them to the pressure of the public square and the troughs of social networks, with the purpose of creating an unhealthy atmosphere of intimidation..

The disgrace of the blacklist not only consists of the arbitrariness with which Sánchez's costaleros start sexing journalists like a farmer starts sexing chickens, but also in the democratic anomaly that restricting the counterpower of the press implies, whether it is or not. be hostile.

It is the same context in which the President of the Government outlines and defines the aberrant dimensions of the wall. His investiture speech—it is worth remembering now—both alluded to the opprobrium of the opposition and emphasized the denunciation of adverse media campaigns.. So alarming and relevant is the battle of good against evil, that it is urgent to define the coalition of darkness. Not only the PP and Vox. Or the judges. Or the fierce businessmen. Also the dissenting press. And the particular subjects who should be familiarized with a more aggressive legislature than the previous one.

Moncloa is not as bothered by the facherío media as it is by the tribunes and mass spaces in which upright or non-aligned journalists are recognized..

Alsina is a good example. The attempt to classify him as conservative is as ridiculous as attributing submission to Pepero dogmas.. Alsina is upset because his speech both responds to deontological obligations and obeys the substance of the argument and plurality..

Alsina is upset because she exposes the emperor's shame without fuss. Because he asks and editorializes with criteria. And because it portrays Sanchismo in its inconsistencies and contradictions, just as it once uncovered the dark areas of Marianism. Alsina is upset because the defense of some values and principles—incompatible with the Vox model of society, refractory to caveman nationalism—does not guarantee him mastery of the truth, but they do qualify his honesty, his rigor and his transparency.. And Alsina is upset because his qualities as an interrogator – between the Mossad and the Stasi – have turned his program (More than One) into a kind of militarized zone of exception – a minefield – that the representative positions of the Executive, as if they are afraid to submit to the truth serum and are afraid to say exactly what they think.

The Moncloa has a problem of democratic credibility not only when it differentiates with a brush the category of the press between the favorable and the adverse, but when it places on the other side of the wall the journalists and the media that cultivate the critical spirit and that exercise responsibly. the obligations of scrutiny and surveillance.

That is why it makes sense to rub Pedro Sánchez a passage from his investiture speech that alluded to the reactionary behavior of the opposition, when it seems like flashes from his own mirror: “You start, ladies and gentlemen, by denying access to certain media and “it ends up muzzling the judiciary and censoring the press, as is happening in countries governed by the right and the extreme right.”

That July 19, 1936, just a few hours after the coup arrived in the Peninsula led by Franco, Sebastián Taberna woke up soon, very soon, to the sound of the bugle, in Pamplona. Surely, the fact that he turned 29 that day was a thought that remained hidden in his consciousness, because what was presented to him would change the course of history.. He soon enlisted as a volunteer in the requetés, from where he would fight alongside the rebel side, but he would also immortalize the war with his Leica..

More than 3,600 snapshots, human, direct, not propaganda, give a good account of what life was like in the trenches.. Now, the Cerralbo Museum hosts an extensive sample of them in the aptly named exhibition Sebastián Taberna: the face of War. In it, the viewer will appreciate unpublished images taken by the Navarrese photographer between the front and the rear thanks to the dedication to conservation carried out by the Taberna Belzunce family..

Taberna was a self-taught young man out of obligation: “At that time, it was impossible to find formal training in Pamplona on photography, especially with compact cameras,” explains Pablo Larraz, curator of the exhibition.. He met his neighbor, later partner, Nicolás Ardanaz, a photographer with a certain impact on post-war traditional photography.. “Both acquired French, English and German graphic magazines and took models and learned to develop,” notes the rural doctor and expert in the oral history and photography of Carlism..

Luckily for the young man, his family owned a pioneering company in the modernization and distribution of bread, so on the trip through Europe he made in 1933, when he arrived in Germany, he became fascinated by the possibilities of having a Leica hanging. on the shoulder. It was the best photographic machine in the world and Taberna wanted to have one, but it was not easy. Two years had to pass until the young man acquired his Leica, model 3-A.

His photographic desire accompanies him

His first reports focused on daily life in Pamplona, as well as the San Fermín festivities of 1936, which ended just before the Civil War began.. “Taberna had no previous political affiliation, but he decided to enroll as a volunteer in the requeté, basically for religious motivation, because he was a believing man and considered it his duty, and influenced by his friend Ardanaz, a close fervent Carlist friend,” he explains. the curator of the exhibition.

When the time came, in the Plaza del Castillo, Taberna carried out what was possibly the first report of the volunteers who revolted against the Republic in Pamplona, around six in the morning on July 19.. Although a few days passed without graphic documents attesting to what happened, the following news from Taberna places him marching towards Madrid with the intention of taking the capital.. Once they saw that this would not be possible, at least in the short term, they headed to Somosierra and Navafría, from where their great chronicle of the Civil War begins..

“What Taberna photographs is what he sees, what he feels and what he lives. He is not a professional photographer or official reporter, but a volunteer combatant who also takes photos,” Larraz introduces.. His photography does not have a propaganda purpose, but in the snapshots he captures everyday life from an artistic perspective, even.

Due to his work in the family baking company, Taberna knew how to drive, so the military command appointed him as a truck driver with which he carried out liaison and maintenance work.. “He will be making trips with a Ford truck between the front line and nearby towns for many months,” adds the expert.. In this way, he took advantage of a trip to Pamplona to take all his photographic material: buckets, enlarger, developing paper, liquids, lights, lamps.. “He put everything in two drawers that accompanied him throughout the Civil War in his truck,” Larraz himself emphasizes..

A laboratory in the front

Taberna began to reveal something unprecedented on the front line that was only possible thanks to his improvised portable laboratory.. “Somosierra and Navafría is the time he likes the most.”. Photograph spontaneous, everyday life, from a direct and intimate view. We see people on the ranch, writing letters and reading the ones they receive,” adds the commissioner.. Far from being a glorious or warlike photograph, it is deeply human: the cold and the heat, the rags of the combatants' clothing, are the counterimage of that aura that is assumed to be a person on the battle front..

“He is a very versatile photographer because he immortalizes everyday scenes, portraits, ethnographic scenes and takes experimental photography in very extreme lighting conditions,” characterizes Larraz.. This stark realism of his work can be seen, above all, in three great reports: the taking of the port of Navafría and the evacuation of the wounded; the conquest of Sigüenza, considered his best report; and the battle of Guadalajara, where he witnesses the advance of the Italians and the taking of several towns in the area.

The objective was not only set in war scenes, but also in the rear. This is demonstrated by their snapshots of the coexistence between the civilian population and the combatant volunteers, the daily routine, the campaign masses, which they took great care to do in the requetés, and the celebrations of the holidays, for example.. These photographs also fulfilled another purpose: they encouraged the families of the volunteers..

“Taberna photographed his fellow soldiers, and when they wrote home they sent the photos. He made the copies himself and gave them to them,” observes Larraz. Everything changed in the last period of the War. The National Cartographic Institute remained in Republican hands, so the General Staff of Burgos, in the area where the uprising had triumphed, commissioned it to carry out work to map some areas.. “He moved to the border with France, especially Huesca. We barely have any evidence of those photos, but they were panoramic, with a topographical sense,” says the specialist..

Trauma, silence, recovery

Thus, the bulk of Taberna's work is located between 1936 and 1937, a time in which he was on the front line.. A work that, on the other hand, remained silent for decades. “When he returned home he had such a bad memory of the experience of the War that he kept all those photographs after classifying them,” says Larraz.. Some of them, the most artistic, are positive and stored in albums for personal use..

For 80 years, these images were well preserved, but without coming to light. Meanwhile, Taberna continued taking photographs, although never professionally.. Everything was now very far from his reports on the front, “despite the extraordinary qualities he had for it,” says the curator of the exhibition at the Cerralbo Museum.. Some time after his death, in 1986, his daughter was well aware of the artistic and historical value of those photographs.. The time had come to recover that piece of history. And since then, until today, Madrid welcomes this very unusual vision of the Civil War from the perspective of a volunteer from the rebel side..

I was about to write that, “without serving as a precedent”, I applaud the position of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on his trip to Israel. I put aside that mental reservation, because his reasonable and reasoned objection to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed face to face before the deceased, is not going to redeem him from his indefensible internal alliance with the enemies of Spain, supposedly for the good of Spain..

One does not remove the other.

I recognize myself in Sánchez's position: inexcusable rejection of the execrable terrorist attack of October 7 on the unsuspecting and defenseless civilian population of Israel. The Hamas murders have been unequivocally condemned by Sánchez, along with the no less inexcusable disapproval of the indiscriminate response against the civilian population of Gaza. A condemnation expressed in light of the mandates of international law.

It includes the urgent need to stop the humanitarian catastrophe through a ceasefire, negotiation of a lasting peace and the two-state solution.. It is the official European position, coinciding with the exercise of the rotating presidency. Although it did not coincide, because Sánchez already warns that Spain will make its own decision (recognition of a Palestinian State), if the European countries continue not to agree.

And what seems to me most important in the name of the human condition (humanism, together with democracy and law, is the third founding pillar of what we call Europe). Namely: whether or not it influences the performance of an international policy led by regional powers and the complicity of Israel with the US, while the UN plays the violin.

The loss of dialogue in the area may worsen in the face of this new diplomatic clash with the Israeli Government, which yesterday called our ambassador to chapter to convey its discomfort over Sánchez's statements.. We may lose influence in the area, but Spain will gain moral strength in the public opinions of its country and the rest of the European countries, because it is fair and necessary to say publicly what the President of the Government has also said to Netanyahu. On the contrary, it is unnecessary, false and unfair to accuse him of supporting Hamas terrorism. That awful. An accusation that, also unfairly, sounds in the upper echelons of the PP, only concerned about the foreseeable loss of political weight of our country in this punished coastal area of our Mediterranean..

Sánchez has told Netanyahu that Spain knows what it is talking about as a suffering country in terms of terrorism (ETA's nightmare against democracy and the blows of furious Islamism in Madrid 2004 and Barcelona 2017).. And there was never the temptation to respond with blood and fire to calm the instincts of revenge outside of legal and moral mandates.. Those who at this point should refrain from referring to the “dirty war” of the State in years of ETA lead. Equally condemnable, but nothing to do with the size and nature of the savages. Even so, they were specific and selective responses condemned in court..

Many of us would like the moral traits of Sánchez's position on the Middle East conflict to spread to national politics.. In other words: that the courage he has had to make the Israeli Prime Minister uncomfortable, whatever it costs Spain in bilateral relations or in loss of international influence, he would also have with those who maintain poisonous complicities for the health of the Kingdom of Spain.

The difference is that he owes Puigdemont the position. He owes Netanyahu nothing. On the contrary, he owes us the apathy for not having previously taken out of hell the Gazans with Spanish passports, ignored by other nationals who were emerging from the Rafah mousetrap, due to the lack of dialogue from Spain..

On the other hand, the surrender and surrender to the humiliating demands of a minor character, like the Waterloo fugitive, is well worth a tribute of loyalty in exchange for four more years in Moncloa.. Although, to explain it, Sánchez has had to distribute among his people an instruction manual with lies at the service of the inconsistency that breaks the waist of traditional PSOE militants and voters..

The truth is that he is not capable of behaving like a president of the Government either inside or outside of Spain.. And that, for that reason, it is not accepted at the table of the elders.

The supposed capacity for interplanetary leadership that the troubadours of the Sanchista ruling party talk about has never corresponded to reality. There is a subtle distinction between knowing how to speak English and other leaders recognizing your moral authority and wanting to listen to you..

From the beginning, he aroused misgivings in the main Western foreign ministries due to the composition of his Government.. Nobody can be surprised by this: there are better business cards than the presence of communists in the council of ministers of your country.

Later, he showed his lack of expertise in foreign policy by unbalancing Spain's historical position in the context of the tension between Algeria and Morocco..

Then, he confirmed his weakness by publicly admitting that his phone and that of other members of the executive were within reach of foreign espionage for no less than 14 months..

And, then, he confirmed the measure of his international stature by calling general elections during the Spanish turn of the EU presidency.. They told everyone it would never happen, but that's what happened. In the foreign policy scenario, no matter how tremendous the parties are, surprises are not very funny and “changes of opinion” are not much celebrated..

Especially now, as the European Union goes through momentous turbulence. The barren semester that Sánchez leaves on the continent entails an irreparable loss of his personal reliability, but also a serious deterioration in the prestige of our country.

The visit that caused this crisis was held, precisely, within the rotating framework of the European presidency. Therefore, Sánchez's role was not to represent our country, but rather the entire EU..

Unfortunately, it has not represented the interests of the Spanish people nor those of the rest of Europeans.. The President of the Government has harmed Spain and Europe by behaving in Israel as if he were at a rally in Fuenlabrada.

He has weakened Spain because in his statements, within the national conflict, it may even be somewhat tolerable for a leader to go beyond what he should in such a delicate matter.. But when a president is away, in the Middle East no less, it is essential that he exercise caution.. Megaphone diplomacy is incompatible with the political responsibility that must be demanded of any Government.

Our country meets all the necessary conditions to deploy not a megaphone diplomacy, but an effective diplomacy that places our nation among the mediators and facilitators, that is, as part of the solution to the different problems in Latin America, North Africa and also in the Middle East. However, this requires skill and discretion that this Government cannot offer..

Sánchez has weakened the EU because the position of such relevant partners as France and Germany, to name just two, is very far from what he has expressed in Israel as a representative of the entire continent.. This is the type of slip-up that explains why it is not part of the real decision-making table.. They don't even summon him.

Additionally, it has also advanced the unilateral Spanish recognition of Palestine if this does not occur within the framework of the EU, breaking the principle of unity in foreign policy that any truly European leader must respect and promote, even if only out of elemental loyalty..

This is a serious mistake that strengthens Netanyahu. The current Israeli prime minister, already under discussion before October 7, his credibility severely damaged since the terrorist massacre, has just received a gift that will not improve the conflict situation, but may bring additional problems and suffering..

The offense left by this visit to Israel reflects Netanyahu's aggressive speech, as well as his desire to remain in power, exploiting the feeling of helplessness that a large part of the population feels in the face of the existential threat posed by terrorism..

He has the speech done. The story will come out only because it can be developed with the materials of what is true. The truth is that Spain has (at least) two pro-Hamas ministers in the Government. And the truth is that Sánchez's press conference was held yesterday at the place where the hostages were released, without him having lifted a finger to get them out of kidnapping.. It is difficult to script a major imposture. And it is difficult to imagine more powerful ingredients for repudiation and discredit to emerge..

This mistake strengthens Hamas. Nothing benefits terrorists more than the moral relativism of democratic nations. These fundamentalists want to erase Israel from the face of the Earth, they are using its population as cannon fodder, and they use hospitals and schools as nerve centers for their murderous infrastructure.. Anything other than defeating them completely will be an ethically and materially incomplete task..

Talking about the “two-state” solution without first demanding that there be “zero terrorism” may look cute on social networks, but it does not serve to take away even a bullet from the nightmare..

To ignore that Israel, like Ukraine, is on this side of the border of the democratic model, that fundamentalism seeks to destroy the reason to impose dogmatism, is to morally arm the fundamentalists..

It is much easier, of course, to put the “Palestinian” around your neck. Use the cause of equality as a weapon within your country and remain silent before the rapes of Israeli civilians, or the savage oppression of Arab women.

In these contradictions, in this dangerous exhibitionism of a false moral superiority, is what the woke left is in, which, paradoxically, acts as a loudspeaker for the propaganda of fundamentalism.

That's clear. The mystery, the real mystery, is who the hell could have thought that a statement like this could be a good idea.. The same thing goes there: the majority of Spaniards are against the amnesty, the majority of the left sides with Palestine. Smokescreen.

Now is when the carefully chosen and doubly used word during the investiture debate begins to take on political meaning: wall.. The purpose is to lift it and that requires a good number of expert workers..

The design of the new Executive fits perfectly with the will demonstrated in Parliament to confront the Spaniards, throughout the legislature, so that the social fracture hides the imminent democratic disaster and the subsequent perpetuation in power.

A wall. He wants to build a wall between friends and family, a Government that presents itself to us as a wall against the extreme right while, in the basement, it submits to the nationalist supremacist right, and renounces the obligation to govern for everyone equally..

A wall. An Executive of 22 ministries that, perhaps, end up being few, because there is plenty of money here and it is seen that power never has enough towers for the snipers to shoot us propaganda and words harder than stones.

A wall. How long will it take for that wall to be completed? Will it ever stop going up and up, separating us more and more, until we are completely foreigners?

It will have to be very high if this means that we do not see the threads that manage everything since Waterloo.

It will have to be very thick so that it separates us from memory and we forget that democracy was something else..

It will have to be, without a doubt, a colossal work of social engineering.

And what better minister of public works to build a wall than Óscar Puente? We saw him taking out his gun every time the word respect was heard, now he can shoot with everyone's money. He has marked all those who may dare to joke about the territorial grievance that was imposed on the Moncloa. It is advisable not to doubt too much their willingness to punish the blue administrations, which, in essence, implies punishing citizens for not having voted as they should..

There is no difference between treating territories differently based on the color of their Government and treating citizens differently based on their political affiliation..

Who could be a better Minister of the Presidency to undermine public life from the Executive? And who is the best to destroy the courts? And who is the best to pierce the Cortes? One to rule them all, the new demolitions minister. Bolaños against the separation of powers to separate us from democratic normality.

There is no wall that does not rise on a previously demolished territory and that is the ministry in charge of dismantling, one after another, the foundations of the home that we Spaniards founded in 1978..

Who could be a better minister to guarantee the security of the wall? None better than Marlaska. The most admired by humanitarian organizations after his success in Melilla. The most celebrated by public servants who risk their lives to protect ours.

Who is the best to finance the wall? One who wants to leave, Calviño. And another, María Jesús Montero, who likes to break her hands applauding, while breaking the sacred principle of territorial solidarity, since that is what has been allowed with the delivery of fiscal sovereignty to the Basque Country and Catalonia. And so everything on that side…

But please keep this key: Sánchez's ministers will be in charge of building the wall, Yolanda Díaz's will be in charge of making sure we look elsewhere, and everyone in single file will submissively obey Puigdemont and company.

How will they try to get us to look somewhere else? Raising constant cultural wars that polarize society to distract us from what is substantial.

Irene Montero insisted on doing so during the last legislature. And he succeeded to a large extent. The problem is that her own management was so disastrous that in the end she ended up removing her from the board, and deactivating the women's cause as an arena for confrontation..

It left feminism confronted, unstitched and sadly discredited. That is why that portfolio returns to the Socialist Party. Ana Redondo García (this could be the right one) comes to repair everything that the other tore. It will take time.

Without that battlefield for confrontation between Spaniards, another opens with the creation of the Ministry of Youth and Children for Sira Rego (she could be the new Montero in terms of sectarianism and harassment of freedom).

Get ready, because it looks like the minister of indoctrination has been appointed thinking more about improving the delicate situation of Vox than the fragile future of our children. She is no less dogmatic than Irene Montero, she is just as radical, but she has much more experience: she has been in the business since 2007.

The purple caste has imposed itself on the proletariat that moved to Galapagar. Mónica García will seek confrontation with the PP communities by talking about the terrible situation of the hospitals where no one remembers her working. Ayuso will take care. And the confrontation will distract us.

Bustinduy will team up with Yolanda Díaz so that we feel lucky to live in the most progressive country in the Milky Way, as the burden of the middle classes continues to expand. And Urstasun will distribute subsidies to the cultural satellites of nationalism, selling us that modern is forgetting that the past exists.. It will not make State cultural policy, it will allow culture to become an instrumental element of social engineering.

Material engineering designs and builds physical structures and systems.

Social engineering designs and builds political structures and systems by exploiting the weaknesses of human beings..

Our anger, our fear, our desires for immediate rewards, our problems maintaining attention, our need to feel part of something are going to be poked at to build a wall that we will not see, a wall that will not listen to us, that will take away our desire until to speak.

It happens, however, that walls—even virtual ones—have a bad relationship with history and with the social essence of the human being.. The passion for freedom has not ceased to be inherent to our nature. That's the trick. The hope. The advantage.

When you talk to Víctor – his fictitious name – his pathological optimism draws powerful attention.. This middle-aged Post Office worker with an impeccable haircut has a markedly extroverted character and tells each story with great passion.. No one could imagine the ordeal he has gone through over the last seven years.. Let's recap: they opened his car twice to put drugs inside, he received several beatings, he ended up in the hospital because some thugs broke his ankles with hammer blows, they hid a gun in the trunk and he was even detained and unjustly prosecuted for drug trafficking. These were some of the consequences of being immersed in an alleged criminal and police corruption plot just for falling in love with a woman.. The ex-wife of an alleged drug trafficker who was a confidant of a commissioner. Both have already been arrested. And Victor begins to recover his life. The most important thing: she will be able to see her daughter again after two years without doing so due to the precautionary measures imposed after her arrest for drug trafficking and the fear that something would happen to the little girl..

Receive El Confidencial in a cafeteria in the center of Malaga. It has been difficult for him to take the step and trust, but he is willing to recount all the hardships. “Will you have enough pages?” he asks, pointing to the notebook.

“Lets start by the beginning”. He explains that in September 2015 he met María – fictitious name – through a chat. They both liked each other and the first in-person dates ended up turning into a relationship. “Three months later, we were living together,” he says.

Víctor got to know his girlfriend's circle of friends, as well as her family. The two children of his girlfriend and her ex-husband: Salomón KC, a businessman whom the woman had divorced in 2013. “Someone told me then that she had had problems with one of María's boyfriends,” but he did not give it too much importance.

The problems began when the couple decided to move to one of the properties that had belonged to the extinct marriage and for which they were litigating.. “It was a penthouse” located in Fuengirola, he points out, “and we moved in in January or February 2016”. A Belgian citizen, who had been a tenant of the apartment, filed a trespass complaint that came to nothing.. Subsequently, a family car was stolen from the garage, which days later was found “with no signs that it had been broken into.”. That was the second. Victor and María began to be restless, but they never imagined what was going to happen on October 31 of that year..

1- Drugs in the car

“That day we went to his brother's house, in the Cerro del Águila urbanization, in Mijas, to get some furniture because the attic was empty and it had to be furnished little by little”. When they were returning, Víctor, who was behind the wheel, realized that they had a car stuck to them.. He was surprised, in addition to the short distance, that “it was night and the lights were off.”. He continued driving, but when he reached the roundabout at the entrance to Fuengirola, “he pulled into parallel and showed me a license plate through the window.”. A few meters away, they came across a police vehicle crossed on the road..

They stopped the march and the plainclothes officers asked them to get out and open the trunk.. “One of them looked directly to the left and took out what looked like a hashish plate,” recalls Víctor, who adds that one of the police officers extended it to him so he could take it.. “He told me: 'I'm giving you a chance to say what it is.'. But I refused to take it.”.

The couple was arrested and taken to the Fuengirola police station.. “I spent three days in the dungeon. Then I found myself involved in a judicial process. For a year I went every 15 days to sign in court.”. But it was finally proven that this drug “was not ours and that someone had planted it”.

At that time, Victor and María had more than suspicions that Solomon was behind what happened. And not only because he had previously told his ex-wife to keep that car, to which he had keys, but because they also began to receive intimidating messages..

2- “Severed head”

On November 22, 2016, the woman reported that an individual with an Eastern European accent told her verbatim: “You didn't leave the apartment. You will end up in jail or with your head cut off.”. She linked this threat to the legal dispute she had with her ex-husband over the attic and thus reflected this suspicion in her statement..

3- Group aggression

On April 12, 2017, Víctor had to be admitted to the ICU at the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella after suffering a brutal attack when he was going to enter the portal in the company of María. “It was seven thirty or eight in the afternoon and I saw three individuals. They caught my attention because, at that time, they were wearing sunglasses. When I opened the door, I felt a push on my back.. And immediately two of them began to hit me with extendable batons. The third grabbed María and then hit me in the neck before falling unconscious on the ground.”. Lying on the floor, he kicked him in the head, breaking his cheekbone..

His partner began to scream and ask for help, which caused the attackers to flee.. Before the agents arrived, a boy approached María and told her that he had recorded everything. But those images were not attached to the investigation.

“That day I had a visit with my daughter. Thank God I changed it,” says the victim, who began to doubt the work of the investigators at the Fuengirola police station when she perceived an indifference towards her case that led her to complain to higher authorities.. The Internal Affairs Unit would end up substantiating these suspicions when alleged police corruption surfaced that supposedly benefited Salomón KC.

4- Alibi messages

“Hello, friend, this time I escaped you. No hurry. We will wait for you. And don't forget you. You owe us 25,000 euros for the drugs. Used for!” (Sic). This is the textual content of the message that Víctor received on August 29, 2017 on his mobile phone.

Sensing that it was a strategy to link him to some narcotics matter, and taking into account the precedents he had experienced, he decided to file a complaint.. In it he also reflected that in November of the previous year, and through SMS sent from two different numbers, “they threatened to kill him if he did not pay for a drug.”.

5- Broken locks

On different dates – October 16 and 25, 2017 – María reported to the Fuengirola police station that they had changed the lock on the front door and that they had accessed the interior of her house.. And she related these actions to the disputes she had with her ex-husband..

He made the same warning when on two different days – March 6 and 12, 2018 – he observed that the lock and frame of one of the doors of his car had been damaged.. “They did not take anything from inside,” was reflected in the police report.

6- Weapon and pills

If what he had suffered up to that moment was not serious enough, what happened on July 16, 2018 definitely opened his eyes and he was aware of the risk that loomed over him.. “That day, María, my daughter and I, traveled to Granada to spend the weekend. When we arrived, and I parked the car, I went to take the suitcases out of the trunk. Then I noticed that one of the rear lights was moving.. I went to put it correctly and noticed that there was something inside. “I put my hand in and pulled out a gun.”.

Víctor remembers that he went to a police station and they explained to him that it was not real, that it was an airsoft model. But they decided to return to Malaga because they were scared.

As the couple had doubts about the alleged connivance of certain agents from the Fuengirola police station with Salomón, whom they suspected of being behind this new event, they decided to go to the North Police Station in the capital of Malaga because there was an agent there who they had told what they had been suffering during the previous two years. Víctor made a “voluntary surrender report” of the weapon and together with María headed to Fuengirola.

He remembers that he parked near the Civil Guard barracks and that they began to remove the belongings from the vehicle. At that moment, “in the back seat behind the passenger seat, I see a hidden bag with what looked like some small balls.”. The first thing I thought was that it was ammunition from the gun we found. But when I picked it up, I realized they were pills.”.

They called the police officer from the North Police Station again, and he moved quickly with his colleagues.. “They came with guide dogs and the Scientific Police were looking for footprints,” said Víctor, who is convinced that they wanted to “set a trap for us again.”.

7- Threats

Víctor reported on September 21, 2018 that he was supposedly “rebuked” by Salomón when he was showing the attic where he lived with María. He claimed that he was threatened.

8- Parked car

On October 7, 2019, he left his car, locked and parked correctly, in the community parking lot.. But he was later informed that it had been removed by the municipal tow truck because it was parked incorrectly on public roads.. With the certainty that someone had moved him without his consent, in the complaint he expressed the fear “that something could have been put in him.”.

10- False complaint

On July 30, 2020, María files a complaint against her ex-husband for false reporting.

11- “I have to get paid”

Víctor did not stop receiving disturbing messages and linked these messages with an attempt to build a kind of motive for the aggressions and attacks they suffered, since they were more constant when an episode of violence occurred..

This was expressed to the National Police after October 18, 2020, he reported receiving the following text: “Ola amici. I'm in Fuengiola. I have to charge the money. Successes” (Sic). And he explained that he had evidence that he had been sent by Francisco NC, a guy whom investigators place within the criminal network supposedly led by Salomón..

12- Aggression with hammer blows

The most serious event, which was detailed by El Confidencial based on police reports, occurred on May 12, 2021 and ended with Víctor in the hospital after being attacked with hammer blows by three thugs..

This is the first-person account of what happened: “María was driving and I was in the passenger seat. We were going to leave my daughter with my ex after spending the day together. A girl with a cap and mask approached and asked me the time. When I went to answer him, he sprayed me in the face. The first thing I thought was that it was streamer that children play with.” But he immediately realized that it was pepper spray.

“I run after her, but at the end of the street three guys come out. Two of them were carrying hammers. And I recognize one of them from a previous attack. I try to flee. They chase me, and when I have gone about 50 meters, one of them “They hit me with a hammer on the back and I fell to the ground.”.

“I ask for help, but another, large one, sticks his knee into my chest and tries to hit me in the head with a hammer.”. He doesn't get it because I hold his arm. The other two, meanwhile, immobilize my legs and break both my ankles with blows.. “The other one, who had a signet ring on one of his hands, punches me in the face.”.

“They flee when people in nearby buildings start yelling at them.. I don't know how I could, if it was because of the adrenaline, but with both ankles broken, I tried to run after them. “Then an ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital.”.

Víctor says that he was on sick leave for a year and that he became afraid of the different police forces because his partner's ex-husband had slipped on several occasions that he had contact with “senior officials” – as reflected in the case reports -. This fear was based, in part, on the fact that the numerous complaints that both he and María had filed led nowhere.. They did not advance and, even less so, did they lead to arrests.

When the agents of Investigation Group II of the Western Police Station of Malaga went to his house to talk to him, “I didn't open the door and knocked to find out if it was true that they had sent investigators,” says the victim, who confesses that He did not trust any police officer and began to regain faith in the authorities when he realized that they were willing to listen to him and go as far as necessary..

What happened next was reported yesterday by this newspaper. Group 10 of the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI) joined the case due to suspicions that a corrupt police network provided confidential information to Salomón KC, who under his businessman facade allegedly led a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking and other crimes.. Data that he allegedly also obtained about Víctor and his ex and with which he allegedly made their lives impossible, as the investigation concludes..

On March 6, he was arrested along with the then commissioner of Fuengirola, José María Tocornal, who is accused of interference in different cases to supposedly protect someone who was also his confidant, say those responsible for the investigation, who also point to the participation from other agents from the Fuengirola police station. Two weeks ago, without going any further, the last arrest that has emerged occurred: a sub-inspector.

Victor explains that these arrests have brought some peace to his life, but he does not forget the past suffering. “For four months I had nightmares. I dreamed that they entered the house. But the worst thing is that I haven't seen my daughter in two years.. With everything that has happened to me, the mother requested precautionary measures, which I understand because I would have done the same; but I haven't even been able to talk to her on the phone in the last few months.

His great joy is that this situation is going to change. Justice has determined that the visitation regime must be resumed. He can't hide his happiness. Gone is that carousel of attacks, arrests and threats. Start to see the light again.