The stench of Gürtel

The stench of the Gürtel corruption scandal fills the High Court of Valencia, which this week will witness the final stretch of the trial concerning the suits allegedly received as bribes by the ex-premier of the Valencia regional government, Francisco Camps, and by the former secretary of the Popular Party (PP) in Valencia, Ricardo Costa. A smell of contempt for the public good, of hollow flattery and unctuous conversations, and, above all, of shameful connivance between a network created solely for appropriating public money, by those whose duty it was to protect it and manage it with care.

The forced resignation of Camps in large measure defused the political charge associated with the trial. Rajoy's road to the prime ministerial mansion was thus cleared of an annoying obstacle: the appearance of a sitting regional premier before a judge and jury. But his resignation did not entirely eliminate the political charge; Camps is before the court for what he allegedly did while head of the regional government.

The fact that Camps has declared himself "absolutely innocent," and not just plain innocent, squares well with his claim, as an argument against his trial, that he is "the most widely accepted premier in history." Yet the excellence he claims for himself is not apparent in his record: his mandate has left the Valencia region spattered with cases of corruption - the most recent one being that of the public company Emarsa, charged with the treatment of sewage in the Valencia metropolitan area. To this bad management the ruinous state of Valencian financial institutions must be added, and public accounts that border on the status of junk bonds.

Exercising his right as a merely incidental figure in the case, Camps may have lied in court, sowing confusion and attempting to "empathize" with the jury as he says he "empathized" with his dear friend Álvaro Pérez, aka "El Bigotes," the head of the Valencia branch of the Gürtel network. He has been able to offer no proof at all that he bought the 12 suits, four jackets and nine other garments that came to his wardrobe by way of Gürtel. The cashier of the shops that sold these garments has no record of payment. The head tailor of these shops, José Tomás, has stated who paid: Pablo Crespo, the number two figure in the network after Francisco Correa.

In addition, the other two high public officials implicated, Víctor Campos and Rafael Betoret, who admitted in court that their suits had been gifts from Gürtel, have, like it or not, become solid witnesses for the prosecution. If Gürtel showered them with gifts, with all the more reason the heads of the regional government and party must have been so showered. The Gürtel case, though split up into different trials, is materially one and the same. The case of the suits is, if you like, the cherry on top of the cake - lucrative contracts for public events obtained by the network - which makes the cherry's meaning clear to even the most obtuse.