Do Me A Favour: Spas, corruption and society

One of the features of quality and service improvements to Mallorca’s hotels has been the introduction of spas – beauty salons, jacuzzis, wellness sessions, all that sort of carry-on. Demand for spas has come from tour operators who see them as important in upgrading the standard of hotels. Provision for their additional creation was covered by the virtually zero-rate interest finance offered by the regional government as a way of assisting hotel upgrades during the crisis and by the so-called “decreto Nadal” which cut out some bureaucratic procedures in order to facilitate renovation and development work at hotels. The reclassification of hotels that is to take place within the next few years will take account of spas.

All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that “decreto”. Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the “chosen one” by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he’s worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother’s way.

Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas – the number of which could be expected to increase – to be accredited and given quality ratings?

Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don’t let’s ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.

Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people – those who won the contract.

Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco’s company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco’s partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa’s own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.

The story of the spas – and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain – tells you much about how the “system” works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.

Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother’s bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party’s mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference – matriarchal or patriarchal – persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the “system”.

Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the “corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about”; that it is society (Mallorcan) that “begets the politics of the island, not the other way round”. In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.

The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that “so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing”. I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.

The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens – be it spas or whatever – without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn’t. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kiss And Make-Up: No chance – corruption cases continue

The corruption cases involving leading members of the Unió Mallorquina party continue to astound. There are now two former tourism ministers in the frame – Francesc Buils has been indicted, to add to Miquel Nadal. The former speaker of the parliament and former leader of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar, is now accused of diverting some five million euros of public funds between 2000 and 2007. There are also accusations of payments to party members from public money. The details no longer seem to matter. The scale is all that really counts. And the impression. One not of a party rotten to the core but one riddled with the maggots of decay at its very top: Buils and Nadal were very much Munar’s men. They were. The canaries are singing, looking to pass the buck and deflect the accusations elsewhere.

There remains in all this sleaze and in all these allegations a suggestion that the cases are all political. Are they really? For them to be political would require some sort of set-up involving other political parties, the police and the judges. It’s a nonsense. Nevertheless, there is an unease with the highly public nature of the way in which evidence is given out and in which the accused are paraded. Jason Moore, in an editorial in “The Bulletin”, made a valid point the other day, one with which I agree; in essence, that the process should go ahead with greater dignity. The calls for sentences that come from the prosecutors before the full judicial procedure has been gone through are as unpleasant as they are presumptive of guilt.

This said, the magnitude of the charges, and also those levelled against the former president of the regional government, Jaume Matas (Partido Popular), are such that highly public displays might be said to be necessary. The corruption cases are that serious that they do threaten an undermining of the democratic system. One cannot overstate the significance of what is taking place in Mallorca at present. I have wondered if I have overplayed all this myself in invoking the past – the Franco past. I don’t know that I have, but I wouldn’t necessarily have expected support for this from … Maria Antònia Munar. In an interview with the IB3 television station yesterday, she declared her complete innocence and went on to say that “democracy is based on the confidence that people have in the institutions and politicians, and when this confidence is lost a dictator can emerge”. She is not wrong, but some might detect a touch of dissembling – allegedly.

So seriously are the cases being taken that the central government’s justice ministry has authorised a reinforcement of the anti-corruption investigation unit in the Balearics. Fifty-five prosecutors are on their way to augment its numbers. 55! The Balearics delegate to the central government has had to ask for police reinforcements because so many officers are involved in examining the evidence associated with the different cases. It is a staggering situation.

Among the various accusations being made is one by the judge presiding over the so-called “caso Maquillaje” (the make-up case). He has accused Munar of alleged bribery. There was something rather poignant, if this is the right word, about this accusation. On the day that the judge was saying this, someone left prison. The poignancy was the photo of this person with a beret and sunglasses, travelling on what looked like a bus. Who was this? Luis Roldán. He was once the director-general of the Guardia Civil. He had served half a 31-year sentence for, among other things, bribery.

Yesterday there was another anti-corruption demonstration in Palma organised by the “Plataforma contra la Corrupción”. It also had a certain poignancy. They demonstrated in the hope that the current spate of corruption cases might be the last. They can hope. They should remember Roldán. Maybe I – they – do make too much of all this. There’s nothing new under a Spanish or Mallorcan sun. Not now and not, in all likelihood, in the future. But maybe the highly public parades of the accused might, just might, stop that future.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

No Particular Place – The Unió Mallorquina’s internal strife

Politically, the English “ite” is a Spanish “ista”. For Blairite or Thatcherite, read, within the warring ranks of the nationalist party in Mallorca, “Nadalistas” or “Munaristas” or indeed “istas” of no particular name. The no-particular-istas have won the battle if not necessarily the war, that of the heart and soul of the Unió Mallorquina party. They have got their man – Josep Melià – who has been confirmed as the new president of the party; the fourth in less than four years, following Mother Munar and two Micks, Nadal and Flaquer, all three of them implicated in corruption cases. Melià has hardly won a ringing endorsement; the vote in his favour was close. He has, as has his rival, one of the former tourism ministers Buils, made the right sort of noises regarding a new phase and stability for the party, but it is unlikely to be anything of the sort. The UM is ripping itself apart on the rocks of internecine strife and the fall-out from the corruption charges.

There is an ideological battle being waged within the UM, one that goes back to the succession process when Mother moved over to become speaker of parliament. It is one of Palma-ism versus the regions, one of right versus centre, one of old ways versus new and one of support for discredited politicians versus those not implicated by scandal. One has, of course, to be fair. No-one has been found guilty, but mud sticks, and the right of the party, identifiable with Nadal and Munar, is setting itself up for discredit by association by maintaining support for Nadal and Munar and for a political mindset that the “new way” wishes to sweep away.

It is never as simple as it might seem, given that the party’s Palma-ism garners its own support in the regions, but the northern UM faction – that of former Alcúdia mayor Ferrer and his successor and of Pollensa’s mayor Cerdà – represents a more modern form of Mallorcan nationalism, one of the centre and liberalism, that failed to win support when Munar stepped down, but that has now come to the fore. Ferrer, it should be recalled, was Nadal’s opponent in the Munar succession fight. Nadal, a Palma councillor, had Munar’s backing, as did Buils in the latest vote.

The “Diario” journalist Matías Vallés savaged Nadal and Munar in the paper yesterday. He described Nadal as “ineffable” and compared Munar to Gloria Swanson, hankering for a time when justice was “voiceless” in Mallorca and presiding over her own political funeral. Both have been charged with egoism by their opponents of the new way. It is hard to fathom quite how they can have been seen to have been taking active roles in the latest leadership election, given the ongoing cases against them. It is hard also to fathom the thinking of their supporters, who might be better advised to create some clear blue water. But there is always “innocent until proven guilty” as well as there are enduring motivations of power struggles that any political party is subject to.

Does the fighting have any real relevance though? The UM, though well represented at mayoral level across the island, only finds itself in the governmental spotlight because of the need for coalition. It does have a role to play, therefore. As tourism minister, Ferrer, it might be said, holds the second most important post in the regional government, after the president. But set against the two big parties – the PSOE and Partido Popular (which, some in the UM idiotically claim, have conspired to bring about the corruption charges) – the UM is something of a sideshow. The party has never truly succeeded in making itself a force, partly because it is has not always been clear what it stands for. There is more than a slight sense that it is a sort of flag of convenience for politicians disinclined to ally with the two main parties, especially with the PP which occupies similar political territory in certain respects; a flag of convenience that might be the springboard to satisfy political ambition that might otherwise not be available in a bigger party.

It is the striving for some clarity that is the political debate within the party, one overshadowed by the corruption cases, and the “big thing” informing this debate is to try and shape the UM in the mould of the CiU or PNV, i.e. the centrist and liberal nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque country. It is this, perhaps more than anything, that the no-particular-istas want to achieve. Though neither of these parties is militant, they do, nevertheless, herald from regions with a long history of nationalist sentiment; indeed the two regions most clearly associated with historical opposition to a unified Spain. This is not, for one moment, to suggest anything sinister, but it is to suggest that the UM may be willing upon itself a more assertive nationalist posture, albeit one moderated with the humanist tendencies of, for example, the PNV. But unlike Catalonia and the Basque country, there is not and never has been anything of a true nationalist desire in Mallorca. Despite the rise of Catalanism, Mallorca remains an essentially conservative and passive society. Moreover, when I asked Alcúdia’s new mayor about “nationalism”, he was quick to point out that it wasn’t some kind of Little Mallorquínism. The ambition, though, to be something akin to the PNV is almost certainly far-fetched. The PNV is not only the second oldest political party in Spain, it has also been the dominant force in Basque politics.

In seeking a “new way”, the UM appears to be embarking on the local road to Damascus in attempting a definition, but one of an abstract political ideology of questionable relevance to the majority of Mallorcans. Far more important is that it distances itself from its recent and current travails, those being played out in the courts in Palma, and ensures that it is not tainted by the Nadalista and Munarista associations. In this respect, it has taken the first step.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

While I Was Gone

Despite the slight paean of yesterday to cheap and abundant latest technologies in England, there was a period of some five days when no technology intruded. Mobile off and no internet. Did my life suffer? Not so as you would notice. Nevertheless, by dint of some technological magic, I was able to remain abreast of matters Mallorcan. Not that there was much going on, other than grapes being eaten, fireworks going off and blokes thumping their wives. But I will not go there, in the case of the latter.

To catch up on some things that did occur …

Firstly, the corruption rumpus rumbled on. The leader of the Unió Mallorquina, Miquel Flaquer, had to resign owing to his implication in the Son Oms case. This added fuel to the schism within the party. The matriarch of the party, for whom I have coined the description “Mother Munar”, was dubbed the “reina madre” (queen mother) by a press examining the tensions between supporters of so-called “munarismo” and those who would rather put considerable clear blue water between themselves and the party’s grandest grandee, herself of course on the corruption charge-sheet. Leading-ish members of the party not either banged up or in danger of being so were jockeying for the top job in the party, including – God forbid – Mr. Awkward, Joan Cerdà, mayor of Pollensa. By awkward, I don’t mean that he is one of the awkward squad, just that he looks so awkward. Perhaps this is because he’s always in the firing-line following the latest gaffe by Pollensa town hall. Mercifully, he was not elected leader, even if his elevation would have given rise to huge sport and amusement. Instead, the UM spokesperson in the parliament, Josep Melià, has got the gig, which I’m sure will make you all feel as though you can rest easy in your beds.

Secondly, Real Mallorca and its lack of fans. Sid Lowe may have caused his own little rumpus by suggesting the club has no fans, but he was of course right. It doesn’t, or rather it doesn’t have many. Despite the on-field success of the team, the club’s support is falling. The average attendance this season is a mere 12,323 spectators, half the stadium’s capacity. The club’s management is baffled by all this. It shouldn’t be. Mallorcans support other (mainland) teams, the ground has no atmosphere, and the team is regularly ripped apart, only to be put back together with bits of string and sticky-backed plastic by the heroic coach Manzano. To these factors, one can add the economic crisis and alternatives in terms of football on the telly and other attractions. The announcement of such poor attendance does, though, undermine all those protestations, partly by expat supporters gone native and by those who took exception to what Lowe had to say, as to the importance of the club. It is a club that may yet die through lack of interest.

Thirdly, the new smoking law. The president of the island’s small and medium-sized businesses organisation gave a wide-ranging interview to “The Diario” in which, although not clarifying exactly when the new law is meant to kick in, he accepted the need for no-smoking areas but criticised the Spanish Government (and the regional one) for a lack of appreciation as to the costs involved in conforming with the law, bars and restaurants having been obliged to spend in order to meet rules introduced four years ago, which are now to be superseded. The president, Juan Cabrera, did not go so far as to demand financial assistance but did call for “responsibility” on behalf of governments determined to press ahead with health legislation without thought being applied to wider business impact. Unlike other commentators, he does not believe that the smoking ban will result in closures; other factors will cause these. He also had something to say about the fact that over holiday periods, such as that at the end of the first week of December, so few places were open. He reserved criticism for the great number of restaurants that did close, saying that – at a holiday time – people don’t want towns that are “totally dark”, which is fair comment but neglects the fact that employees are on double time on fiesta days, something that many owners are unprepared to pay.

And finally, but still on restaurants, the first female chef from Mallorca is to participate in the Madrid Fusion culinary exhibition at the end of January, this chef being Macarena de Castro from Jardín restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia. Those who have ever been to Jardín are more likely to know Danny, but it is his sister who is the cooking talent behind the restaurant, and at the Madrid event she will be preparing dishes based on sobrasada, the local sausage.

Unió Mallorquina – It’s A Family Affair

It just gets better. Or worse, if you happen to be one of those implicated in the Son Oms case. Not only is it getting better, it is dragging in some bizarre elements, like for example an heir to the Bulgarian throne. Didn’t know there was one? No, nor did I. But there is. Kyril of Bulgaria, as he is known. And how, you may ask, does some prince or other from an all-but-defunct royal family get embroiled in what “El Mundo” is calling the biggest scandal of political corruption in the history of the Balearics (which in itself probably takes some doing)? Well, you have to realise to whom Kyril is married, albeit they have not long separated. The missus? Her name is Rosario, Rosario Nadal. Sounds familiar? Dead right. She is the cousin of Miquel Nadal, the now ex-tourism minister. 

Though not directly related to the Son Oms case, the police are raking through all manner of stuff, one aspect being the purchase of a finca in Llucmajor, a purchase made by Kyril and Rosario, for which Miquel Nadal and his law firm acted. The investigators want to know why nearly 3 million euros were paid for land, the value of which had seemingly increased by around 700%. They are also keen to know about movements of money allegedly involving tax havens. Miquel Nadal’s firm coined some 370 grand as a consequence of this purchase. The authorities are following different lines of enquiry, one is that the land was bought speculatively as it could have been subject to some development, another – and this is where it gets even stranger – is that the finca could have somehow been to the benefit of the Unió Mallorquina party in the construction of the golf course in Campos. I confess that I have got lost; I’m not entirely sure how this might all have benefited the UM, but the authorities clearly seemed to believe that it might have done, though now they are backtracking on this theory, given the distance between the finca and the golf course that was planned for Son Baco in neighbouring Campos. Kyril, for his part, is denying that there is anything wrong.

With all the flak flying around, it was inevitable – as I had suggested by saying his position had become untenable – that Nadal should have resigned, which he did yesterday. This might just be enough to hold the coalition regional government in place, though President Antich has announced that the current pact with the UM will be broken, meaning a likely teaming up with the Partido Popular, despite the fact that his party (the PSOE socialists) and the PP are poles apart politically. Another option, that of an election, is also being touted, not least by “The Bulletin”. It could be necessary, certainly if a new coalition cannot be established, though I am unconvinced that it would solve anything because the problem runs much deeper. 

This is an extraordinary situation. Even by Mallorcan standards, the scandal is potentially immense, and one has to be reminded that, in addition to the last president of the islands being under investigation for a different case, the Son Oms one involves the former leader of the council and two former leaders of the Unió Mallorquina as well as the current one. It doesn’t get much worse (or better, if you prefer a bit of corrupt knockabout). Maria Munar, that former leader of the council, was always close to Nadal. He was very much her “boy” when it came to the party leadership succession. Political closeness is one thing, family ties another. Munar’s husband has been mentioned, Nadal’s wife’s cousin has been mentioned, in addition to his own cousin. You begin to see a pattern emerging, one that appears to bring us, not irregularly, to scandals and specifically to the biggest scandal of the lot. It is deeply troubling.