The flashes can no longer follow Isabel Díaz Ayuso dressed as a chulapo, with a well-fitted cap, a red carnation in her hair and a buttoned vest. Unlike a year ago, when the now president of Madrid dresses in the men’s suit to celebrate the patron saint of the capital in the prairie of San Isidro, this Friday the 15th marks the high point of a fateful week for her interests.
On Monday it is known that the confinement happens in a luxury apartment of the Room Mate chain. On Tuesday, a juicy contract with that company is deleted from an official website, which the two parties later denounce as false. On Wednesday, he reorganized the cupola of his Health department in the middle of a pandemic. On Thursday, Metroscopia places its Government in its worst demographic moment. On Friday, the Ministry of Health denies Madrid the pass to phase 1 of the de-escalation. And on Saturday, while giving a press conference to complain that there are no technical criteria to support that decision, the report that contains them is known.
Díaz Ayuso experiences many of these episodes as an affront or an attempt to create artificial problems to cover up the coronavirus crisis. This has been a week turned into a via crucis.
Monday 11. From Aznar to the luxury apartment. Isabel Díaz Ayuso does not know that one of the hardest weeks has just begun since she became president of the Community of Madrid when she began to chat with former President José María Aznar. In a telematic talk for the students of the Leadership Classroom of the Atlantic Institute of Government and the Graduate School of the Francisco de Vitoria University, the two PP politicians, harsh among the harsh, take delight in anecdotes about Bill Clinton and Hugo Chávez, and defend the management of Madrid in the health crisis. Meanwhile, a storm of consequences still unknown today begins to form.
Shortly after Díaz Ayuso finishes his talk with Aznar, Vanity Fair publishes an article that is equivalent to a sleeping bomb, because it does not explode until the next day: the president of Madrid has been residing in a luxury apartment located on the eighth floor of the Plaza España Skyline BeMate, owned by the Room Mate chain, since mid-March ; it has at its disposal two fully furnished terraces with views of the Royal Palace, the Casa de Campo and the Parque del Oeste; and enjoy a suite of about 88 square meters.
Tuesday 12. A phantom contract with Room Mate. After denying the Community that the rent is paid with public money, the hotel chain affirms that the cost “of the apartment” will be 80 euros per night. In the following days several rectifications arrive. This cost actually covers the rental of a home (on the sixth floor, the “executive suite terrace”) and the use of another to work (on the eighth, the “roya suite”). It is not the last time that the chain and the Community have to admit that the information they have given is incorrect.
Although both the president and Room Mate say that no one else lives in the apartment building, closed due to the coronavirus crisis, EL PAÍS confirms that there are more clients, and that it is even possible to make a reservation. And despite the fact that Enrique Sarasola, the owner of the company, affirms in public that any client would have the same price as Díaz Ayuso (80 euros a day, 2,400 for a month, more than 4,800 in the time it takes), the truth is that the price that is arranged through the web shoots up even in a room of a lesser category than that occupied by the president (3,808 per month).
Has there been a favor deal? Sarasola denies it, and points to “a black hand” that seeks “political returns”.
“It is a crime,” Díaz Ayuso will end up saying about the publication of the contract in theory non-existent.
But the controversy grows. The Ministry of Social Policies publishes a contract with Room Mate of 565,749.62 euros on the contracting portal for enabling the use of two of its hotels as residences for the elderly while the state of alarm lasts. He immediately erases it, says it doesn’t exist, and attributes it to human error. It exchanges it for another with a different winner (the Coordinator of the Third Sector and not Room Mate) and a different amount (240,443.57 euros and not 565,749.62). All alarms go off: since the tender appears on the contracting portal in late April, it undergoes up to four significant changes.
Before, a PP politician cancels an interview with this newspaper because he does not want to enter into contradictions with the leader. The storm has not yet fully erupted, but the dark clouds are already visible on the horizon.
Wednesday 13. Dismissal from the Government. While the controversy grows, the pandemic continues. On the Governing Council that day, Díaz Ayuso reorganized the Community’s health leadership in the midst of a pandemic: Carlos Mur de Víu, general director of socio-sanitary coordination, was dismissed; appoints a new general director of public health after the resignation of the previous one, Yolanda Fuentes; and formalizes the appointment of Antonio Zapatero as the new deputy minister of Public Health and Plan covid-19.
Thursday 14. Clash between government partners. Alberto Reyero dismisses the Technical Secretary General of the Ministry of Social Policies, ultimately responsible for the publication of the allegedly false contract with Room Mate on the transparency portal. Díaz Ayuso is not satisfied. First, her environment remembers that this dismissal is not valid until the president accepts it, so it leaves it on hold. And the president, in addition, announces an internal investigation into what happened, despite the fact that the counselor claims to have already done one.
The two decisions underline how in the PP they distrust Cs. An erroneous contract published at night, fully affecting the controversy over the president’s apartment? Rare. And being responsible for its publication a council of Cs that is in the eye of the hurricane for the almost 6,000 deaths in residences during the coronavirus crisis? Stranger still. Those are the reflections of members of the conservative formation, a reflection of how mistrust spreads among government partners.
In between, Metroscopia publishes a worrying poll for the interests of the Government: the majority approval that the Madrilenians granted to the Executive of Díaz Ayuso for his management of the coronavirus crisis has gone from 61% a month ago to 42% today. And the Rubicon that marks the pass from approved to suspense intersects with the resignation of the general director of Public Health, Yolanda Fuentes, in disagreement with Madrid requesting the pass to phase 1 of the de-escalation. She is one of more than 77% of Madrid residents who believe that the region should remain in phase 0. Diaz Ayuso’s thesis does not stop. Only one in five citizens is inclined to change phase, according to Metroscopia.
Friday 15. Madrid does not go to phase 1. Díaz Ayuso wakes up denying everything. “I am not in a luxury apartment; neither are 2 of 200m2; nor is it a bargain as the hotel is closed; not even the hotelier has done business with the Community ”, he writes on his social networks. “This is a campaign to hide the disaster that Spain has gotten into: so there is no disaster, there is an apartment.”
That day, however, the disaster is another. For the second time, the Ministry of Health denies the passage of the Community of Madrid to phase 1 of the de-escalation. The regional government breaks out. “We are facing a political attack on the Community of Madrid, which is part of the unacceptable campaign that they are carrying out on my government,” says Díaz Ayuso.
The president claims the technical report that supports that decision. He puts on the table all the efforts made by his Administration (increase of templates and capacity to do tests; availability to multiply beds …). And it does not enter the debate on the arguments presented by the Ministry: after the resignation of the general director of public health, the new Health team has not been in office for a week; the work of the new templates must be consolidated; and the mobility of the region discourages taking risks and favoring a re-emergence (just the same argument used by the Community to request access to the entire region as a whole to phase 1, and not by municipalities).
Saturday 16. Technical silence. Díaz Ayuso accuses the central government of “cutting freedoms” and of “undermining the constitutional design through the back door.” To justify these two serious accusations, he argues that there is no technical criterion that guarantees that Madrid remains in phase 0 of the de-escalation, and that the decision has been political.
While the president of Madrid speaks, EL PAÍS advances the technical report that explains the decision due to the weakness of the regional primary care system, in charge of monitoring new cases and investigating the people with whom they have been in contact. Neither for those questions, nor for those raised by the official medical association of Madrid, which warns that there are almost a hundred medical centers still closed, there is no answer. Just silence.
“Madrid loses its executive autonomy during the single command. An anonymous group decides our Health and Economy. Who are they? ”, He later asks on his social networks. “A report, made ad hoc, has been leaked to the media while we were giving our press conference,” he continues. “What European capital receives that treatment?”
Primary care is still not ready
Health details to the Community why it should wait for the de-escalation: lack of development of the plan for detection and follow-up of cases, limits in the capacity to carry out PCR and a shortage of human resources. Click to continue reading.
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