King Juan Carlos I, referred to since 2014 as the emeritus king, has fled from Spanish and Swiss justice in a shameful manner. He has been exposed before Spanish society. Not even his own family defends him anymore.
August was a month used by the Franco dictatorship to pass laws that were expected to be contested, such as the General Education Law.
August is once again the month chosen by Franco's successor, appointed King by the Dictator, to flee the country where he has served as head of state for four decades, with many silences and complicities from many powerful people and most of the media.
The abdication of Juan Carlos I in 2014 relied on the good work of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. The deterioration of the monarchical institution had hit rock bottom: the silenced Kios case, the Noos case, the elephant hunt, the accident in the company of one of his friends with whom, it seems, he has been very generous... in conclusion, a life that is not exemplary for someone who held the Head of State.
Apparently, the emeritus king considered, from a Christian perspective, that by apologizing and promising that it would not happen again, everything was settled. The Bourbon restoration was set in motion, and the abdication and the creation of the strange figure of emeritus were produced, as a hypothetical formula of protection and immunity to continue enjoying the impunity called inviolability. Meanwhile, the traditional bipartisanship looked the other way and supported the monarchy and its scandals.
However, what had been vox populi for years, about his personal fortune, has been the next chapter. And accounts appear in Switzerland and tax havens, information about alleged commissions from Saudi Arabia for his efforts in the construction of the AVE in that country. The Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court is investigating him for money laundering and tax fraud.
At this time, citizen Juan Carlos, under investigation, is allowed to leave the country, announcing his alleged act of service to the monarchy when he had already fled. Why hasn't his passport been withdrawn?
For this escape, he had to have the collaboration of the Government, and -by the immediate manifestations of Unidas Podemos denouncing this fact-, with the collaboration of the socialist party that justifies this operetta escape with a lapidary phrase: "what had to happen has happened", as if it were a question predestined by divinity, alien to their connivance.
Some argue that everything prior to his abdication is within his right to inviolability. However, it is logical that the private acts of the emeritus should not be protected by that inviolability, neither before nor now. And there PP, PSOE and Cs have recently joined to prevent a commission of investigation in the Congress of Deputies.
The information of the emeritus' accounts had to appear in a British newspaper for the suspension of salary made by his son and the notarial declaration of his resignation to his father's accounts in tax havens and his inheritance, an act that apparently had been done a year before and waited for the beginning of the state of alarm to announce it.
All these gestures are vain attempts to firewall a monarchy corroded by corruption and scandals to try to appear as a model and transparent institution.
This country is no longer that of 1975, in the middle of Franco's regime; it is no longer that of the referendum of December 15, 1976 on the Law for Political Reform, supported by 94.17 percent of yes votes; it is no longer the country in which the military had an omnipotent power and threatened every day with a coup d'état; it is no longer the country in which we were all told the story of the "model transition".
Fortunately, the cultural level of the population has increased, our society has traveled and does not speak from hearsay, our young people have been trained in other countries with extensive democratic experience. And in addition, we can be informed by alternative means through social networks.
Now it is much more difficult to whitewash the monarchy. And the democratic process to debate and agree on the constitutional reform, to agree on what form of State we want as a society, is unstoppable.
You can't put doors on the countryside.
Manuel Marrero Morales, spokesperson for the Sí Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group
