Ekip
June 22, 2016•Update: June 25, 2016
By Alyssa McMurtry
MADRID
With only five days until Spain’s general election, acting Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz has been swept up in a political crisis after leaked recordings suggest he plotted to embroil pro-independence Catalan politicians in a corruption scandal.
The recordings, published online by Spanish digital daily El Publico, claim to reveal a secret conversation from 2014 between the minister and the head of Catalonia’s anti-fraud office, in which they are heard discussing the possibility of bringing fraud cases against separatist politicians and their families.
"I've heard the recordings and see a minister apparently using his position and public resources to investigate political opponents," said Pablo Iglesias, leader of the anti-austerity Podemos party, in a radio interview.
Fernandez Diaz is a member of Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party, which is expected to win another minority government in the elections Sunday.
The leaders of Spain’s three other biggest parties have pounced on the scandal, calling for his resignation and hoping it can sway precious votes away from the ruling party. Catalonian leaders have also called for him to step down.
Socialist leader, Pedro Sanchez, told a campaign rally in Castilla La Mancha: "The use of public institutions to partisan ends is the maximum expression of the corruption we must stamp out in public life.” He said Fernandez Diaz should “immediately leave political life”.
Fernandez Diaz has denied the allegations, calling them “harmful” and “stupid”. He said the tapes are “biased, out of context and edited,” reports Spanish daily El Pais.
“Whoever is talking about conspiracy should look at themselves in the mirror,” he said.
Spanish premier Rajoy came quickly to the defense of his minister, expressing his “clear confidence” in Fernandez Diaz on the campaign trail in Mallorca. According to El Pais, officials in Madrid discard any resignation.
“Since there are only four days until the end of the campaign, there are those who want to fish in troubled waters to see what they can catch,” the Spanish media reported Rajoy as saying.
Beyond politicians, Spain’s two main police unions also called for his resignation. In a joint statement, they-called the conversation a “conspiracy” that reveals “a use of state resources to partisan ends that would be absolutely unacceptable in a democracy”.
