From Prestige to Gürtel: corruption cases the PP can't shake off

From Prestige to Gürtel: the list the PP can't bury

Is the PP worse than Sánchez? Asked that way, without nuance, it's the question that opens a debate which within hours went from comparing court cases to arguing over whether anyone deserves a vote at all. The starting point is a thesis: the cases of corruption and incompetence attributed to the PP — with or without Vox — place it below the current Government. And the first counterargument comes with a date: to find much of that record you have to go back twenty years, or to a train accident that peine when the PP had just inherited, according to that reading, a country in technical bankruptcy.

From there the exchange becomes a cross inventory. On one side are listed the Gürtel, Púnica, Lezo, Yakolev 42, Prestige and Angrois cases and Ayuso's penthouse; on the other, the reply comes with the Koldo case, the Mediador scheme and the investigation into Begoña Gómez. Neither list ever closes. And in the middle, a handful of participants begin to suspect the exercise isn't about corruption, but about keeping the other side from rallying its own voters.

Which cases are pinned on the PP and which on the PSOE

The list thrown at the PP mixes judicialized corruption with crisis management. Gürtel, Púnica and Lezo belong to the first group: funding and public procurement schemes that have shaped the judicial agenda of the past decade. Yakolev 42 and Prestige point to something else: the political and administrative response to a catastrophe. Angrois adds the rail disaster. And Ayuso's penthouse works as a recurring wildcard, an episode cited more for its symbolic value than for its legal pogre.

The reply comes with names from the socialist side. The Koldo case is described as an alleged network of illegal kickbacks in face mask contracts during the pandemic, centered on a former aide to Ábalos with branches into the Ministry of Transport and public works contracts. The Mediador scheme, linked to former MP Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, is presented as an alleged extortion of businesspeople in exchange for contracts or avoided inspections. And the case against Begoña Gómez, being investigated in Madrid for alleged influence peddling and business corruption, is wielded as proof that the current Executive isn't clean either.

The precision matters: almost all of the above are investigations or accusations, not final convictions. Anyone using them as a definitive argument is doing politics, not law.

The "you're worse" argument and why some see it as a trick

There is a current in the discussion that rejects the whole method. It holds that answering one case with another is bad faith, and that the real problem isn't comparing court files but renewing the people who brought the country to this point. From that position, the exercise of balancing lists serves to shield the usual suspects: while everyone argues over which party steals more, nobody demands accountability from those still in office.

The objection has legs. If the standard is decency, the comparison is irrelevant: two parties with open cases don't legitimize each other. If the standard is governance, then the debate should be about results, not court files. And if the standard is electoral, the question boils down to which of the two does less damage while in power.

Against that, another part of the exchange argues the comparison is informative. A party funding scandal is not the same as a scheme run out of a ministry, nor is a rail accident the same as a kickback network amid a health emergency. The scale, the timing and the degree of institutional involvement change the diagnosis. Viewed that way, the PP's list would be older and the PSOE's more recent, and that — the argument goes — counts too.

The PP's answer: the party expels the corrupt while the PSOE protects them

On the popular defense side, a recurring argument appears: the difference lies not in the existence of cases but in the reaction. It is claimed that the PP, when it wanted to, has known how to cut loose and remove those implicated, while the PSOE protects its own with formulas like "I have no knowledge of it" or the presumption of innocence turned into a shield. It's a debatable thesis — court timelines don't always cooperate — but it explains why the conservative electorate keeps mobilizing despite the court cases.

The flip side is just as uncomfortable. If the PP expels the corrupt, why do they reappear on its candidate lists? If the PSOE protects them, why do some of those implicated end up resigning? The debate resolves neither question, and there it stays.

The Vox scenario: pensions, dismissal and resources

The hypothesis of a PP Government with Vox introduces a variable that is not judicial but material. The claim is that such an alliance would put pensions, social benefits, sick leave and dismissal protections at risk, while aligning the country's resources with the interests of Trump and Netanyahu. This is the part of the exchange where the debate stops looking at the past and projects into the immediate future.

There are no figures to back the scenario, only the warning. And the response is just as blunt: if the PP touches the public sphere, the day of reckoning will come and no lamenting will help. Two symmetric apocalypses that, as usual, cancel each other out.

The fatigue: between ironic "vote PSOE" and abstention

As the exchange goes on, exhaustion sets in. Some respond with an "you've convinced me, I'll vote PSOE" that is really just a polite way of saying the talking points don't work. Some call for voting for whichever party promises to bring the managers to account in auto-da-fé, and others simply declare that no decent party exists.

The result is a debate that never converges. Nobody switches sides. And the dominant feeling — the only one almost everyone shares — is that comparing court cases wins you an argument in a bar, not a vote.

In the end, the opening question remains unanswered. And it probably will stay that way until someone bothers to read the verdicts instead of the headlines.