It seems like yesterday, and it seems like a century ago. That morning when a first headline arrived in the media, which at that time only managed to know that the Arrecife City Council had been sealed off and ...
It seems like yesterday, and it seems like a century ago. That morning when a first headline arrived in the media, which at that time only managed to know that the Arrecife City Council had been sealed off and was being intervened by judicial order, will hardly be forgotten on this island. It was May 25, 2009. A date that will go down in history, although it has not had the due effects on institutions and political parties.
Almost a year later, a new phase of this judicial intervention has arrived, now under the name of Operation "Jable", which may have yielded more results not only because of the depth and scope of the alleged events uncovered, but also because of the social and even political impact. And the quantity and names of the new defendants have made it clear that no one is safe from the eyes of Justice.
But in this case, the sad and worrying thing is that many know or believe that they may be next. That not all those who are, are still there. Because if the "Unión" case really managed to put all those who have participated in corruption plots on the island, to a greater or lesser extent, in the dock, the Tahíche prison would become small again.
For the moment, it is expected that the number of defendants will reach almost one hundred, which is already a terrifying percentage for an island that does not reach 150,000 inhabitants. And that, unfortunately, makes it unmanageable in the same judicial cause, but also means that there are many interested in doing everything possible to prevent this from prospering or, at least, from continuing to advance, especially considering that it has splashed the highest spheres of the island, and even outside of it.
All the political parties that govern in the island's institutions have defendants in this case. PP, PSOE, CC, PNL? but fundamentally the PIL. And while in some cases specific acts of public officials or affiliates have been detected, the situation of the Independent Party of Lanzarote is much more compromising, since many of its members are accused of acting as an organized association to commit crimes.
However, a year after this operation broke out, there are parties that continue to give oxygen to this formation, which has managed to return to the government of the Arrecife City Council, where most of its elected officials were arrested or charged, and also to the Cabildo of Lanzarote.
And meanwhile, the responses of this party continue to be as erratic as they are disconcerting. From some of its defendants, they distance themselves. Others, they try to force to resign. To the majority, they continue to give shelter. And the alleged ringleader of the plot, Dimas Martín, they continue to cheer and point out without blushing that they will not renounce his "legacy". And the question is whether they are referring to the legacy of the embezzlement of public funds from the Agroindustrial Complex, or to that of bribery and illicit association that the Court of Instruction Number 5 of Arrecife now accuses him of.
Thus, after the arrival of the "Unión" case, in which one in four public officials of the PIL have been arrested or charged, the party has only adopted one clear, although curious, decision to fix its position. It did so last week, in a solemn meeting in which one of the points on the agenda was to agree not to make any more statements to this media outlet.
Since then, the public officials of the PIL, who collect their salary from the pockets of all the citizens of this island, have orders not to answer the phone or answer the questions of La Voz de Lanzarote and Radio Lanzarote, which maintain a critical line with the cases of corruption uncovered on the island. And although this is probably not the answer that many citizens expected in the face of the biggest corruption scandal that has splashed this political formation, it does serve to make it very clear which path they want to continue to travel.
