The trigger for the war that broke out on Thursday within the Spanish People's Party (PP), and which confronts the president of Madrid Isabel Diaz Ayuso against the national leader Pablo Casado, is a contract assigned to the company Priviet Sportive SL, owned by Daniel Alcázar Barranco, a friend of the Diaz Ayuso family.
It is a contract for 1.5 million euros, signed at the worst moment of the pandemic, to supply 250,000 sanitary masks to the regional government.
The existence of the contract was well known. But on Thursday, the national leadership of the PP accused the brother of the regional president, Tomas Diaz Ayuso, of having brokered the contract in exchange for a commission of 283,000 euros.
In her public appearance on Thursday, in which she did not accept questions from journalists, the president of Madrid insisted that the contract was signed at a time of utmost urgency due to the pandemic: “The object (of the contract) is masks at the worst moment of the pandemic, when there were none and we had to protect citizens and health workers,” she said.
The government of the Madrid region awarded more than 4,000 contracts in the first year of the pandemic, through an express procedure that allows companies to request services or supplies in crisis situations without the need for public tenders.
Diaz Ayuso admitted the contract
On Thursday, President Diaz Ayuso admitted that her brother had a "commercial relationship" with the company, but avoided giving further details.
“I asked my brother, who confirmed that he had had commercial relations with that company, and that everything was completely legal. Everything is legalized before the Treasury and declared," was all she said regarding the contract.
The leak of the alleged collection of 283,000 euros by the regional president's brother came from national leaders of the PP, as published by the entire Spanish press. However, the leadership of the main Spanish opposition party does not have any documentary evidence of the case.
Political espionage
For Spaniards, another shocking aspect of this case is the alleged espionage on the Madrid president, also ordered by the PP.
On Friday, the Spanish press wondered why the national leadership of the People's Party, if it knew of the existence of an alleged crime linked with illegal commissions, tried to use the case politically against Isabel Diaz Ayuso instead of bringing it to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office.
At the bottom of all this political crisis is the struggle for power, political jealousy and lack of trust between the leaders of the Spanish conservatives.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso is the leader who gathered the most popular support in the recent elections and her popularity is perceived by the national leadership of the People's Party as a threat to the leadership of Pablo Casado.
On Thursday, the PP's secretary general Teodoro Garcia Egea said the party would initiate disciplinary proceedings against the president of the Madrid region.
The PP does not even rule out her expulsion from the Spanish People's Party.
