Far from honorable

The "very honorable" regional premier of Valencia, Francisco Camps, resigned on Wednesday amid a whirlwind of speculation as to whether he would follow his colleagues, mired in the Gürtel scandal, who had that very morning pleaded guilty to charges of bribery. Camps must have weighed up the pros and cons of bringing the corruption case that has dogged him for more than two years to an end, and finally decided to resign. Politically, that was the right exit strategy.

An admission of guilt was something Camps must have deemed unbearable. For his self-esteem as regional leader it must, what's more, have been a step too far to appear in person in court to admit his guilt and say before all that he had lied ? that the expensive suits at the heart of the scandal had not been paid by him, but by the corrupt Gürtel network, which enjoyed a close business relationship with his administration.

If he had done so, he would have been left morally and politically unable to lead the Valencian government, not only before his voters but also the rest of the citizens of Valencia. A condemned man always has the chance to claim he is innocent. But if Camps accepted his guilt he would have left those who voted for him without the chance to continue believing in his self-proclaimed innocence. It was an unaffordable scenario toward which the leaders of his party were pushing him. And that was the mission that fell to Popular Party deputy Federico Trillo on his trip to Valencia: convince him to accept his guilt to avoid a trial.

Camps presented his resignation as a "personal decision in favor of my party, which wants to see Mariano Rajoy as the next prime minister of the government." This is surely the case, although it was a forced decision. All the evidence suggests that in the hours prior to the resignation, a battle broke out between the PP national leadership and Camps on the best way out of a situation created by Judge Flors' decision to try the regional leader. On the one side were the PP's interests in upcoming general elections, and on the other Camps' more personal and political interests.

Rajoy, who has been extremely accommodating with Camps ? having regularly made comments such as "I am by your side, behind you, in front of you or wherever I need to be," or "Camps will be the PP candidate in Valencia, whatever the justice system says" ? only reacted when he sensed that the direction that the case was taking entailed some kind of electoral risk. His behavior has nothing to do with the more noble political values ? far from it. He has calculated that in electoral terms a regional leader who admits accepting suits from a corrupt network would be less damaging than the ongoing sight of a public trial being conducted during an electoral campaign.

Out of fear or conviction, Camps put a stop to the game. He must have thought that it had an impossible personal and political cost for him, even though it would be electorally beneficial for Rajoy. The latter is obliged to give a credible explanation of what has happened this week in Valencia, beyond simply insisting on Camps' "honor" and congratulating himself for the management of a situation that has had a very serious adverse affect on the Valencian government, the Popular Party, the image of the region and the quality of democracy.

Camps is going to continue to insist that he has lived up to the label of "molt honorable" in fine fashion. But, once more, that is a lie.