Rotten tomatoes? Tomatina fiesta comes under scrutiny for corruption

A small Valencian town’s popular tomato-throwing party, the Tomatina, was getting out of hand. In recent years, the population of Buñol had been swelling from the usual 10,000 to four times that number in late August.

Yet town authorities were barely profiting from it. The pictures of revelers covered head to foot in tomato juice that make world headlines every year were having little impact on the local coffers.

That is why Buñol’s council, which is in the hands of the leftist parties Esquerra Unida-PSPV and IAB, decided last year to charge a €10 entrance fee and hand management over to a private firm.

The PP says this is just the tip of the iceberg of alleged irregularities committed by Buñol over 20 years

In response, the opposition Popular Party (PP) has filed a claim with the Anticorruption Attorney reporting “alleged crimes” and a “lack of transparency” in this privatization process.

Last year, thousands of people from all over the world converged on Buñol to hurl 130,000 kilograms of ripe tomatoes at one another. This year, the celebration will be held on August 27, and all 17,000 tickets have been sold out in advance (5,000 more are held back for the locals).

The local branch of the PP says that the concession of Tomatina management to a private company represents an annual business of nearly €2 million, yet the contract was awarded “without any administrative paperwork or legal oversight.”

According to the opposition party, this is “just the tip of the iceberg of alleged irregularities committed by the city of Buñol over more than 20 years.”

During the democratic transition that followed the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and the following years, Buñol was humorously referred to as “Little Russia” because local elections were always won by the Communist Party, reflecting a population that was mostly working class and Republican.

Rafael Pérez, the councilor in charge of organizing the local fiestas, said that the government team is “very calm” and that all the PP is trying to do is inflict “political damage,” he told Efe news agency.

“They know their complaint will get nowhere, but they timed it so that it would coincide with the weeks before the Tomatina.” Pérez denied that the private firm is making €2 million on the concession.

According to him, the contract “is not worth more than €7,000, and during the first year they made a loss.”

But the PP says its decision to turn to anti-corruption authorities is based on the fact that the coalition government “refused” to hand over copies of the contracts for perusal.