Feijóo vows no pardons for corrupt officials if PP wins 29-N election

Rally in Vigo

On Saturday, 24 October, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Partido Popular (PP), addressed a pre-campaign rally at the Estación Marítima in Vigo, Galicia. Before a packed hall that applauded him several times, he called the government of Pedro Sánchez 'the government of corruption'. The event featured the PP's candidates in Galicia, the Xunta president Alfonso Rueda and former Mexican president Felipe Calderón. Feijóo chose Vigo, the city where he lived and still spends summers, for the party's precampaign event in the region. The city's mayoralty, held by the socialist Abel Caballero, has long resisted the PP.

No pardons for corrupt officials

Feijóo said that if he reaches Moncloa after the 29-N election he will not pardon corrupt officials. He told the crowd:

“I will make sure they pay for everything.”

He named Pedro Sánchez, José Luis Ábalos, Santos Cerdán and Leire Díez, warning that everything would have consequences. He said the corruption cases would be swept away at the ballot box, starting on the 29th. He also praised the PP's Galician campaign machine, which he said had already been set in motion.

Case count and the early election

Feijóo listed 17 open case files affecting the Socialist Party (PSOE), in which he said 23 offences are alleged and 131 people are under investigation. Accounts of the speech differ on the potential penalties: one version puts them above 1,000 years in prison, another at 1,400 years, both according to the penal code. Other reports quote him saying that 16 cases remain to be closed. He presented the cases as the reason the government brought the election forward:

“That is what has motivated them to bring the elections forward.”

He made the claim while attacking the rising cost of living, which he linked to inflation driven by high international oil prices.

Zapatero and the jewels

Feijóo also turned to former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whom he called 'the moral beacon of socialism'. He demanded that Zapatero explain the origin of the jewels to the judge and apologise to Spaniards for the lessons he had wanted to teach them. Feijóo said the PP was still waiting for an explanation of where the jewels came from:

“We are still waiting for them to explain where the jewels came from.”

He also said that the shame Zapatero had caused Spaniards needed to be acknowledged publicly.

Housing, taxes and anti-squatting

Feijóo promised to build one million homes in the next legislature if elected, together with cuts to income tax (IRPF) for middle and low incomes, the self-employed and young people. He said the plan would reform the land law and the horizontal property law and approve an anti-squatting law. In Barcelona the same day, PP candidate Xavier García Albiol said most squatters were 'caraduras' and promised the law would be applied 'in the harshest way possible'. Daniel Sirera, the PP leader in Barcelona, called on Catalan president Salvador Illa and Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni to clear the plaça Catalunya encampment. Elías Bendodo claimed that housing prices had risen 74% and rents 44% under PSOE governments.