KING Felipe VI's annual Christmas Eve speech once again included a covert appeal to secessionist politicians, as well as raising concerns about young adults' struggle to afford housing and violence against women.
Protesters surround PP headquarters over Rajoy's Gürtel hearing
29/07/2017
AROUND 200 people staged a protest outside the national PP headquarters last night (Friday) over president Mariano Rajoy's answers given in court two days earlier when called as a witness in the Gürtel corruption trial.
A human barrier of police officers stopped the banner-wielding demonstrators from getting too close to the building, or inside it, but the politicians still in the building heard the chants in the street of 'this is no party, it's a mafia'.
To add emphasis, the protesters banged saucepans with large spoons – a type of demonstration known as a cacerolada – and called for Rajoy to be 'judged', calling the PP 'an embarrassment to Spain'.
During his session in court on Wednesday morning, Rajoy claimed that he had known nothing at all about the finances of the party or how the elections were funded between 1999 and 2005, despite being in charge of electoral campaigns during that time and being elected party leader in 2004.
To this end, he said, he was unaware of the existence of the so-called 'Cash Box B', where bribes and backhanders from companies in exchange for lucrative public works contracts were stashed before being divided between high-ranking party members and used to fund election campaigns.
Members of the public found these declarations of ignorance difficult to believe.
One of the protesters, Luis, said: “He's shown he's finished as government president – he said he knows nothing about numbers, and yet he's a property registrar by profession.”
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AROUND 200 people staged a protest outside the national PP headquarters last night (Friday) over president Mariano Rajoy's answers given in court two days earlier when called as a witness in the Gürtel corruption trial.
A human barrier of police officers stopped the banner-wielding demonstrators from getting too close to the building, or inside it, but the politicians still in the building heard the chants in the street of 'this is no party, it's a mafia'.
To add emphasis, the protesters banged saucepans with large spoons – a type of demonstration known as a cacerolada – and called for Rajoy to be 'judged', calling the PP 'an embarrassment to Spain'.
During his session in court on Wednesday morning, Rajoy claimed that he had known nothing at all about the finances of the party or how the elections were funded between 1999 and 2005, despite being in charge of electoral campaigns during that time and being elected party leader in 2004.
To this end, he said, he was unaware of the existence of the so-called 'Cash Box B', where bribes and backhanders from companies in exchange for lucrative public works contracts were stashed before being divided between high-ranking party members and used to fund election campaigns.
Members of the public found these declarations of ignorance difficult to believe.
One of the protesters, Luis, said: “He's shown he's finished as government president – he said he knows nothing about numbers, and yet he's a property registrar by profession.”
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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