The president of the Popular Party of Andalusia and of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, has expressed confidence this Thursday in the “transparency” instruments of Spanish democracy in electoral processes, and has recalled the “long experience of vote buying or attempts to buy votes” that, he pointed out, he attributes to the PSOE in the Andalusian community.
In statements to the media in Madrid, on the occasion of his attendance at the National Executive Committee of the PP, Juanma Moreno has maintained that Spain is a “consolidated democracy and has its mechanisms and instruments of transparency,” which is why he stressed: “I fully trust in our democratic system, as it could not be otherwise.”
After the doubts sown by some PP colleagues about postal voting, the Andalusian leader insisted that the Electoral Board must activate all its mechanisms to guarantee maximum transparency and prevent “anyone from being tempted to fraudulently use that mechanism.”
Allusions to the Albaida del Aljarafe case
Moreno also referred to the fact that a former national deputy of the PSOE has been summoned as an investigated party to testify in the case of alleged fraud in postal voting in the municipal elections of May 2019 in Albaida del Aljarafe (Seville). “We are seeing how a political leader of the PSOE, in the 2019 elections, tried to buy votes and, in fact, bought votes and increased the number of socialist voters fivefold,” he stated.
In that vein, he defended that control instruments should be activated whenever necessary, to ensure “maximum transparency” and prevent any attempt to fraudulently use the system.
The electoral campaign and criticism of Moncloa
The Andalusian president has expressed his confidence that the pre-campaign and electoral campaign for the general elections on November 29 will proceed along “the paths of common sense, serenity, and reasonable political confrontation,” and has asked that “a Manichaean use of institutions” not be made, “as we are unfortunately seeing is already being done from the Palacio de la Moncloa to the last institution.”
“Let each of us present our project for Spain and let the citizens choose,” said Juanma Moreno, before adding that he will work “so that there is alternation in Spain and another style and other ways of governing and understanding politics.”
For the Andalusian leader, “the PSOE, tragically, for Spain does not exist, but rather Sanchismo and Mr. Sánchez's Caesarism exist.”
The UCO report and the ‘Leire Díez case’
Asked about the report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard sent to the National Court judge Santiago Pedraz, which states that a witness declared that the alleged ‘Leire plot’ contacted her and spoke of “eliminating” the Badajoz judge Beatriz Biedma, who investigated David Sánchez, brother of the Prime Minister, Juanma Moreno considered that this behavior “is more typical of Calabria in the 70s than of our country.”
“I don't know how far the PSOE's surroundings are capable of going to stay in power,” added the Andalusian president, for whom “we have seen very ugly things throughout these eight years” and, honestly, Pedro Sánchez, “who lost the elections almost four years ago,” does not deserve “the trust of the Spanish people.”
Regarding the fact that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office sees evidence against the PSOE in the ‘Leire Díez case,’ although it considers the decision to request the party's indictment premature, Juanma Moreno merely asked for time for justice to do its job.
