Out Of Proportion: A week in Mallorcan politics

Even by Mallorca’s bizarre standards, last week was a decidedly odd one for the island’s political classes. One party changes its name, one politico slams judges and prosecutors for getting above their station, and another defends the previously indefensible.

The Unió Mallorquina is dead. Long live the Convergència per les Illes Balears. How are we now supposed to anglicise the party? No more is it “unionist”. Is it convergenist, whatever this might mean? The new party has swiftly adopted an abbreviation – CxI – which is even more obscure, except for an “x” marking the spot of where the old UM body is buried.

Ex-UM mayors and councillors have been similarly swift in discarding their past, rushing to converge on the Convergència, every good man and not so good man coming to the aid of the new party. As if anyone will buy it. They’re dead men walking towards the cliff’s edge of falling into oblivion, and the new party as a whole might yet tumble with them if a judge’s demand for a 1.6 million euros bail, levelled against the UM, is upheld. What a political party is supposed to post bail for is beyond me. You can’t exactly bang up a party as such. Or maybe you can. The alacrity with which the UM transmogrified into CxI might have been expedient in the hope that the UM would no longer be liable. For whatever it is supposed to be liable.

The judges and the prosecutors are having a jolly old time of it. The UM, even in death, is the gift that keeps on giving and keeps on allowing the legal system to throw out wild statements about bail amounts and demands for time in clink. While politicians, accused of getting up to their usual shenanigans, are unseemly, so also is the publicity blaring of the m’learned-friends institution. A million euros bail here, a twenty-year stretch there. Do I hear a million and a half or thirty years? It’s the prosecutors’ public auctions for guilt not yet proven. And the press, of course, love it. Where would it be in Mallorca without its outlandish headlines of how much and how long?

Into all this has emerged the odd figure of Ramón Socias. Odd, because he pops up now and then, disappears for a while and then re-appears, offering some grand insight into the less-than-healthy state of Balearics’ political or social life. The central government’s delegate for the islands, he’s a bit like the Governor-General of Australia. You don’t really know what the point of him is, but he’s there, nevertheless.

Or perhaps he’s like an honorary head of state, were the Balearics to be a state, which they most certainly are not, as José María Aznar would fervently insist. Though Francesc Antich is “president”, in the same way that Zapatero is “president”, neither can, in strict constitutional terms, be thus. You don’t get presidents in monarchical democracies, which would mean that Socias is a sort of über-non-president.

Whatever Socias is, he gave the judges a ticking off for acting in a “disproportionate” fashion in hounding the poor former UM-ists who have allegedly been siphoning off Palma town hall moolah for some political advantage. Cue all manner of indignation. Unseemly the process of arrest and publicity may be, but there is also meant to be such a thing as the independence of the judiciary from the executive. Socias had a point, but whether he was wise to express it is another matter, and the head of the judges’ deanery was one who did think it unwise. On balance though, Socias’s intervention might yet be seen to be wise, if it cuts out what is the real disproportionality, namely the media-manipulated fandango of the prosecutors’ song and dance.

While Socias, by implication, some might suggest, appeared to side with the allegedly corrupt, the Partido Popular’s leader, José Ramón Bauzá, entered the fray to seemingly support former president Jaume Matas. He praised the investments of the ex-PP president and reckoned that court cases involving him were “for show”. So, do we now have to believe that Mallorca is engaged in Stalinist-style show trials? Maybe we do. Bauzá’s intervention was doubly peculiar, given the brownie points he has won for not allowing candidature of any politico implicated in corruption and his avowal of legal reform to tighten the noose around future corruption.

One might have thought it wiser for Bauzá to keep quiet where Matas was concerned, especially as Jaume has to try and scrape together the odd million or so in order to stay out of nick. Again. Another headlining bail demand, this time for his nights at the opera building that didn’t get built. Disproportionate? All for show? Maybe Bauzá should have a word with Socias, and together they both keep mum. Or perhaps he should suggest that Matas changes his name.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Crossing Palms With Electoral Silver: Vote-purchasing allegations

It was Alan Sugar, who I suppose we do now have to address as his lordship, who made the accusation that Brian Clough liked a “bung”. Cloughie denied it and El Tel denied having suggested to Lord Amstrad, as he didn’t become, that “old big ‘ead” preferred the bung delivered in a plastic bag at a motorway service station. An investigation into whether Clough did or didn’t like a bung was dropped on account of his ill-health. Amidst all the innumerable corruption cases in Mallorca, a plea of ill-health has, as yet, been sparingly used as a reason for not appearing in front of the beak. Give them time, though.

There are bungs for this, bungs for that. Bungs for footballer transfers, bungs in exchange for votes. Allegedly. We have no way of knowing if the plastic bags that Cloughie preferred, if indeed he did, were from a supermarket, but when it comes to vote purchasing it would appear that a supermarket’s bags were involved.

Those were the days. When it didn’t cost a centimo to pay for a plastic bag in a local supermarket, as it now does. You didn’t need to fritter away the odd centimo here or there on bags designed to hold some fish from the deli counter, while there were more important fish to both fry and fleece. Those were the days. Not so long ago. 2007 in fact. Local elections in Mallorca.

Back then, a case was brought before a judge in which there were allegations as to vote purchasing. It was archived because there was insufficient evidence. The whole affair has now re-surfaced as part of the anti-corruption case, popularly known as the “caso maquillaje” (make-up case), currently being heard in a Palma court. According to “Ultima Hora”, a total of 25,000 euros found its way into the hands of leaders of gypsy communities. The purpose? Votes. Which party was allegedly behind it? Oh, come on, you should know which one by now. Yep, the Unió Mallorquina.

To be strictly accurate, the alleged bung was not in the supermarket bag. What were, were ballot papers pre-prepared for UM voting, ones to be handed out to friends, family and neighbours. Palms were crossed with silver, and into palms were pressed the voting slips, with crosses ready-made.

Twenty-five grand is a fair amount of wonga for securing the gypsy vote, or anyone’s vote come to that, and the question as to where it came from – if indeed it came from anywhere, as it is still, as yet, an allegation – relates to the wider issues of the “caso maquillaje”, namely charges of diverting public money for electoral purposes. And wonga slang is appropriate, by the way, as it is meant to have come from the Romany “wongar”.

The accusation of, how can I put it, a touch of manipulation of the voting process is a further embarrassment for the UM. Recently, the former UM mayor of Muro, Jaume Perelló, was given a 12-month stretch for a spot of gerrymandering at the end of the 1990s. Try as it might, the party cannot shake off its past, and is unlikely to be able to while the various cases in which it is involved make their way through the courts.

A surprise in all this is that the party is still around. Still around and receiving overtures as possible coalition partners. If party loyalists turn up on the door step before the elections, I shall be paying particular attention to any supermarket bags they might have. If they don’t have, there are any number of them lurking in the kitchen, all acquired at a centimo a pop, which is meant to deter their purchase and so save the planet, but of course doesn’t. As they would otherwise eventually be chucked out and consigned to landfill, the UM will be welcome to them, so long as they return them, suitably wonga-ed up.

Between now and election day, the polls will give an indication as to how well or, you would think, how badly the UM will do. The party itself should employ its own form of electoral forecasting. Find a Gypsy Rose Lee and cross her palm not with silver but with the nickel, copper and brass mix of a euro coin or several. What will she see in her crystal ball? Not a tall, dark stranger, but someone altogether scarier. “UM, you’re fired!”

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Down In The Sewer: The rubbish corruption case

Here we go again. When I suggested that you shouldn’t bet against the president of the Council of Mallorca offering a message about corruption at the end of 2011, I hadn’t expected that a case would arise quite so quickly to support such a message. But it has.

Operación Cloaca. A cloaca is Latin for a sewer. Appropriate, you might think. “Cases of corruption keep coming to the surface with the regularity with which malodour filters out of a sewer cover.” Hmm. This was what I said in “The Year Of Living Corruptly” (30 December).

The case involves allegations of false accounting in respect of waste-collection services across Mallorca. Implicated are businesspeople operating such services, the former director of waste management at the environment department of the Council of Mallorca and an economist and an engineer from the council.

The amount of money that is being said to have been “diverted” is staggering, anything up to 3.5 million euros, and the whole thing centres on what was going on at the waste-management division within the environment department at the council. The former councillor for environment was Catalina Julve, now the spokesperson for the Unió Mallorquina (UM) party.

There is an unfortunate familiarity about all this. The UM. One of those implicated, Simón Galmés, said to have charged a monthly 9,000 euros for work not undertaken, is a member of the Alianza Libre de Manacor-UM. It is also being said that, thanks to a friendship with Miguel Riera, the former mayor of Manacor and himself in the ALM-UM, Galmés’s firm got the gig to be contracted to perform the inspection of waste. Riera, now no longer with us, was also the boss of the environment department before Julve. False invoices stopped being raised, it is further alleged, only once the UM was kicked out of governmental posts by the president of the regional government following the various corruption cases the party faced.

Of the various scandals that have erupted over the past couple of years, this one has the feeling of something different. It is less familiar in one respect. Though these scandals have involved the diversion of public funds, they have been at arm’s length, away from ordinary householders and businesses.

This one is different because those ordinary householders and businesses pay taxes for waste collection and treatment. These taxes, that have risen significantly, are, not unnaturally, unpopular. And now we have a corruption case which suggests that a portion of the taxpayer’s burden has gone directly into certain people’s pockets. It brings it home – literally in this instance – the level of corruption and the extent to which it can affect any aspect of day-to-day living.

No one has been found guilty yet. But mud, or rubbish if you prefer, sticks. And as ever it is sticking to the UM. Here is a party that, following its expulsion, looked to try and re-invent itself and have done with the scandals that had attached themselves to it. However, it now has its spokesperson, in effect the number three in the party’s current hierarchy, right in the firing-line.

It seemed inconceivable that the UM, discredited as it had been, could undergo a revival that might see it return to a position of power. Yet this has been happening. The doors had been opened once more to possible coalition government with Antich’s socialists after this spring’s elections. Had been. Perhaps it’s time for them to be firmly shut.

And what of the electorate? Taxes, be they for rubbish or anything else, are an issue that plays with voters. They have a right to see that politicians don’t play with their money, and if it is being played with, then those doing the playing need teaching a lesson. The elections are going to be difficult for the UM. And so they should be. They deserve nothing less. In fact, they deserve binning in the nearest container and waiting for the electoral rubbish collectors to come and dump them.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

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.

Dirty Duckers: Alcúdia corruption and Can Picafort mischief

If you had been inclined to think that all the corruption hoo-ha had gone quiet because of the summer hols, you would have been incorrect. Investigations are ongoing and they have just got very much closer to home. Home, in this instance, being Alcúdia town hall. There was I saying that, Can Ramis apart, Alcúdia was a less turbulent administration than others. I should know better.

As part of the IBATUR (Balearics tourism agency) case, there is a sub-investigation, one that involves a company called Trui. No, not TUI. Trui. You don’t need to know the ins and outs, and you are probably not interested anyway, but there may be some painful truths coming out of the Trui troubles. Painful, that is, for the town hall, the Unió Mallorquina party (yep, them again) and ex-mayor Miguel Ferrer, himself a leading figure in the UM.

To cut to the chase, as reported in “The Diario”, anti-corruption prosecutors suspect that money from the town hall was used to fund the UM’s electoral campaign in 2007. Fingered in all this – potentially – are Ferrer, who was mayor at the time, and his right-hand man, Francesc Cladera, who – it is being alleged – could have arranged for payments, in black, from the town hall’s coffers.

Coming on the back of the opposition Partido Popular’s desire to re-open the case into alleged irregularities in respect of the Can Ramis building, things have suddenly become murky in what had been, so we had thought, the clearer waters of Alcúdia politics.

And while on the subject of water, and moving on from yesterday’s swimming pool fiasco, the annual mischief in Can Picafort duly resulted in a few live ducks going for a dip in the sea during the duck toss on Sunday. Did we ever expect that they wouldn’t?

The local press found both residents and the head of fiestas “surprised” by the level of police vigilance for the event. Not sure they should have been surprised. The naughty boys have been extracting the Miguel for a few years now, and the Guardia seemed determined to prevent any more Carry On Quacking. The police presence was at a level, so it was said, for the royal family putting in an appearance. Helicopters, a sub-aqua team plus the beachside patrols. And still they let some ducks go.

It is all utterly ridiculous. The event has always been ridiculous, but the ban was and is ridiculous, as is what has replaced it, i.e. rubber ducks. The thumbing of noses to authority is ridiculous, but so is the response. What can we expect next year? Submarines rather than a sub-aqua crew? Might be right given that subs used to launch dummy torpedoes at the towers on the beach, such as the one in Can Pic on which the naughties had graffiti-ed a “pope”, announcing their intention to flout the duck law again. Maybe they should just ban the whole thing. Or stage it in a swimming pool instead. Assuming one can be found that’s not been closed.

I asked a born-and-bred Can Picafort resident whether he would be attending the “suelta”. No, he said. He used to, and used to be one of those who swam after the live ducks. But what was the point now? He’s right. There is no point. It’s plain daft, but it always was plain daft, which is why of course it should continue.

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.

The Scream: The anniversary of corruption in Mallorca

It was another holiday yesterday. For once, not a religious occasion, but a political one. Balearics Day, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the introduction of autonomous, regional government in the islands. How apt that a political celebration should be marked by the worst cases of political corruption that Mallorca has ever known – which is saying something. During the twenty-seven years, scandal has reared its head from time to time, but it has spent the past few weeks screaming and bellowing. Rather than dressing up in party frocks, the celebrations for Balearics Day should have witnessed Munchian mourning-black dresses, the scream of the latest political nightmare and anxiety, and hair shirts donned by discredited individuals from the political class. Henry II once did a good line in public humiliation following the murder of Thomas à Becket. No-one may have been betrayed or assassinated, but the entire system of democracy that regional autonomy was meant to have bestowed on Mallorca has been betrayed. And not for the first time. The question is whether it will be the last. You wouldn’t count on it.

President Antich, in a speech to coincide with Balearics Day, has not engaged in public self-flagellation but he has offered his apologies to the people of the islands. He is resisting calls for an early election, preferring to appeal to other parties to come together. Minority rule and motions of no confidence may make this resistance futile, but the mechanics of government – and the constant harping on about the allegedly dysfunctional nature of coalition – are secondary gloss over the more fundamental issue of corruption, both within politics and within Mallorcan society. More than fretting over the electoral system, the corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about. Balearics Day should be the focal point for what the past twenty-seven years have represented, as they have culminated in the current chaos.

Autonomous government brought with it responsibility, that of acting in accordance with democratic principles. But the revelations of the past months have suggested that this lesson has not been learned or, over the course of the past generation, has come to be forgotten. Autonomous government also brought with it the Unió Mallorquina, the party at the centre of most of the rumpuses. It was formed around the same time and in readiness for the first local elections in 1983. That it, a party designed to serve “nationalist” interests on the island, should have been exposed as one serving only its own interests is a deeply alarming condemnation of not just the wider political system but also the social system of networks and nepotism. There is a horrible sense in which “nationalist” is aligned with the self-preservation of the insular webs of family and favours. Which is not to single out the UM, far from it, but it is now symbolic of a sick system created by regionalisation that has politicised a societal preference for rule-bending. All power may well indeed corrupt, and inappropriate behaviour by politicians may indeed be taken as a signal to others in local society to misbehave, but I would argue that it is this society that begets the politics of the island, not the other way round. It has spawned Maria Munar, a figure of the UM from its inception, a Cruella de Vil who has kidnapped a doe-eyed and naïve democracy and bundled it into the back of an official limo, secreted inside a massive wedge of cash. Antich has been criticised for booting the UM out of the coalition. Booting out? He should have launched them into the far reaches of the universe. He was absolutely right to disassociate himself and the PSOE from them.

Balearics Day is the celebration of one of the most important elements of the post-Franco era, that of autonomous government. A generation on from the worthy intentions of autonomy and what does one have? A political party that can allegedly turn a ministry into its own bank. The celebration should inspire not a debate as to the technicalities of local government but soul-searching as to the intertwined mores of sectors of Mallorcan society and the political class. A generation on and one wonders what has been learned. Autonomous government was a clear statement of the rejection of Francoism. But let’s not forget that Franco despised and mistrusted political parties. He did away with them, and The Scream lasted for decades.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Thus Spake Zarathustra – The downfall of Mother Munar

Maria Antònia Munar, matriarch of the Unió Mallorquina party and of Mallorcan politics, has finally quit her post as speaker of the Balearics parliament. Her role in the so-called “caso maquillaje” (make-up) and the corruption allegations levelled at her have – belatedly – claimed her. She is accused, along with former tourism minister Miquel Nadal, of using an audiovisual company, Video U, to divert a quarter of a million euros of public funds for the purpose of financing the UM’s electoral campaigns. Her position had become untenable. The new code of politician ethics that had been introduced was meant to have led to resignations while investigations were ongoing. Munar had chosen to ignore this, until Friday.

While the case has still to be fully brought to court, the knives have already been sharpened. One does have to wonder as to what impact the press might have on any trial. So far there have only been declarations in front of the judge, though Munar has chosen her right to keep silent. Meanwhile, the outstanding “Diario” journalist, Matías Vallés, has – not for the first time – ripped a reputation to shreds. In yesterday’s paper, he headlined a piece about Munar thus: “The most hated woman in Mallorca’s history”. Headlined it thus, and then thus spake Zarathustra. Vallés quotes Munar from a previous time, when she governed in Mallorca alongside the discredited and under-investigation ex-president Jaume Matas of the Partido Popular. At that time she told her party that there was going to be “no-one accused of corruption”. With this, Vallés brands her Zarathustra. Nietzsche took the mythical character and made him “the first immoralist”. Perhaps Munar considered herself an “Übermensch”.

Vallés refers to Munar’s lack of principles and to her relationship with Nadal. “Her beloved dolphin” is how he describes the ex-minister and Munar’s anointed successor as party leader. He had previously called Nadal “ineffable”. In a twist to the saga, Nadal and three directors of Video U have protested their innocence and sought to finger Munar, a delicious story of Munar handing Nadal 300 grand in readies while in the official car of the president of the Council of Mallorca (which Munar once was) all adding to the sleaze.

The characterisation of Munar as a hated woman raises an issue in respect of women in Mallorcan politics, one that has resonance in wider Mallorcan society. Vallés also refers to Munar as Lady Diada, and one has to go back a bit to understand quite what he means; there is form when it comes to Vallés and Munar. The Diada name can just as easily be Lady MacBeth – feminine compassion supplanted by ambition and ruthlessness. Generalisations are always to be treated with care, but Munar’s style and demeanour are not unusual among Mallorcan women of a certain standing. It is in the Mallorcan character to exhibit a sense of superiority in any event, and for some women this can become aloofness that borders on the contemptuous. And to this can be added power lust and self-promotion. Vallés repeated yesterday some of what he said about Munar in December 2007. He mentions a magazine, paid for by the Council of Mallorca, which featured 87 photos of Munar on 83 pages. In another magazine, “Brisas”, published by the Diario’s competitor, the Serra group (“Ultima Hora” and “The Bulletin”), its VIP section was once full of photos of Munar in her finery. One couldn’t turn a page without her staring out at you. But she is not unique.

The German neighbours the other day raised what at first seemed a strange point, followed by a question. On Sundays, they had noticed women who wear furs, wandering around with noses firmly raised in the air. What was their standing, they asked. Initially I didn’t understand, until I remembered that in Germany status tends to be defined, not by class as it might be in Britain, but by profession, whether the husband’s or the woman’s. Talk to Germans, and their small talk is often littered with the adjective “beruflich” (professional). It matters to them. There wasn’t necessarily any such equivalent in Mallorca, I ventured. Just wealth. Or power. But they had identified a trait, one seemingly compatible with Munar. Aloof and contemptuous, not just of others – the Übermensch mentality perhaps, the triumphing by making enemies (as she has admitted) – but also of the rules. Munar has been brought down by alleged rule-bending and breaking and by a hubris that is symptomatic of a social stratum in Mallorca. Vallés has not necessarily made this point, but he has nevertheless given it potential currency. If you read the native, then I recommend you take a look at his article:

http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/02/27/matias-valles-mujer-odiada-historia-mallorca/549053.html
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We Got Nothing To Be Guilty Of – Mallorca’s tourism corruption

Events surrounding Operación Voltor (Operation Vulture) and the corruption allegations related to Inestur and the tourism ministry have moved on apace. The prosecutors are talking in terms of six years imprisonment for Miquel Nadal, ex-tourism minister, and eleven for the Miquel Flaquer, recent leader of the Unió Mallorquina. One needs to be careful. Though charged, along with others, there have been no trials as such. These announcements are often made as to prison terms, but they are rather unseemly. Guilt does tend to be presumed, perhaps with very good reason, but the pre-match (so to speak) publicity given to stints inside does rather stick in the throat.

Nevertheless, what is emerging is evidence of what the prosecution alleges was a “network of assistance to businesspeople close to the UM” that operated via the tourism ministry with the additional aid of the former leader Flaquer. A key example concerns the awarding of a contract for a voice recognition system worth over a million euros to a technology firm. The police argue that the value was way above what was required, the suspicion being that the money trail ended up in the coffers of the party itself. What all this implies is that the ministry, and therefore also Inestur, were being exploited for gain and being run as some private fiefdom to finance, if not necessarily individuals, but then the UM party – a line of argument denied, as you might expect. Individuals or party, it doesn’t really matter, as it all involves the diversion of public money. It seems extraordinary, assuming one accepts the police’s version, that a ministry can be so run without apparently any checks, until the belated ones of the prosecutors. Moreover, it suggests a vein of collusion coursing through the ministry with drips attached to various individuals all tagged with the name UM.

At present, the investigation seems to centre on the period when Miquel Nadal was minister. His predecessor, Francesc Buils, has not been detained but he is expected to be called to answer questions. No charges have been made against him, but a question which arises is whether the UM, in return for its coalition place, was granted the tourism ministry and then targeted it as a means to a rather different end than that of merely promoting and managing the islands’ tourism industry. Inevitably, the scandal has been used to question the viability of coalition governments in the Balearics (well, by “The Bulletin” anyway). This is plainly not the issue. Coalitions do not beget corruption. The logic of the “viability” argument is that they do, and it is wrong-headed. The issue is corruption – period – and the wider societal malaise that cultivates it. This, and the sheer inadequacy of control mechanisms. I would reiterate a point made more than once on this blog, that to reassure a rightly alarmed electorate, a system of pre-emptive vetting of contract awards is needed, rather than the retrospective actions of the police and prosecutors.

Anyway, back to day-to-day running of government, and there is now a new tourism minister. President Antich has chosen not to assume command, though he has put sport under his direct control, and has moved to tourism the employment minister Joana Barceló, president of the Council of Menorca from 1999 to 2008 and a member of the PSIB-PSOE, i.e. the Balearics wing of the socialist party. Antich is also rebuffing attempts by the Partido Popular to bring a vote of no confidence.

Nothing Has Been Proved – Unió Mallorquina’s disgrace

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” – Ronald Reagan.

The police have arrested another member of the Unió Mallorquina, the former leader Miquel Flaquer. There are that many former leaders of recent vintage that is hard to keep track. Two of them are now detained, one other makes appearances before courts and keeps her counsel, as befits the former leader of the Council of Mallorca.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves as to the roll-call that is the rogues’ gallery of the UM, lining up for a police mug-shot either now or possibly in the future: Maria Antonia Munar, speaker of parliament and ex-leader of the party; Miquel Nadal, former tourism minister and ex-leader of the party; Miquel Flaquer, ex-leader of the party; Miquel Grimalt, now ex-environment minister; Antoni Oliver, ex-director general of the Inestur tourism institute and now also an ex-director general of environmental quality; Joan Sastre, relieved of his position as head of tourism promotion. To this little lot can be added those now without a job as a consequence of the dismissal of the UM from the coalition – the minister for sport, the minister for tourism, other leading figures at Inestur and at Ibatur, the tourism promotion wing of government. And there are quite a few more.

Look at those above and a pattern emerges; well more than one. A number of Micks who’ve been nicked or who may be, and a number of politicians centred on one ministry – tourism. The easy assumption, and one that the police and prosecutors are making or for which they have hard evidence, is that there was something distinctly rotten in the state of the tourism ministry of the sub-state that is the Balearics. The tourism ministry, the domain, the bailiwick of the UM. The conspiracy theorists are now hard at work. Tourism equals UM equals irritant party equals something that needs obliterating. It may make sense to those of a conspiratorial inclination, but it doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t conspire against a ministry that happens to oversee the most important industry on the islands, just because it’s under the control of an annoying, third-force party, would you? No. It makes no sense. Forget it.

I say forget it, but then … . It is true that a party like the UM does rather muddy the waters where the major parties are concerned. It may not itself be a major party but it is not insignificant. Clearly not, given the current furore. Moreover, it is a party that is well-represented at mayoral level across the island. It is also a party that represents nationalist interests. Nationalist versus national. UM versus the PSOE and the PP. This is how some are depicting this latest scandal. The wilder and plain bonkers conspiracy theorists may want to dress this all up as some collusion against the UM, but one can – legitimately I believe – wonder as to the corruption accusations levelled at senior UM members. It’s like match-fixing in football. It can’t really work unless the whole team, or several players, are in agreement. Are we really to believe that so many have been engaged in a collusion of their own? It would seem we have to, because this is what is entailed. If so, then this – the UM – is a party that cannot be trusted and that deserves to be blasted into the far reaches of the political universe. But then, that is what some might want.

Another conclusion is that elements within the party appear to have been acting like some sort of self-interested masonic lodge. Funny handshakes and looking after their own. While politicians of other parties are clearly not immune to the temptations afforded by Mallorcan and Balearic politics, the UM, one could argue, is more tight-knit, more indicative of the ties within the islands’ society, more prone to looking after its own and to touting its services in return for feathering its nest with ill-gotten, misappropriated gains. Reagan may have had a point. There again, nothing has yet been proved. And there is that nagging feeling that … .

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.