Hounded by the corruption scandals in the PP, the Prime Minister, Marino Rajoy, decided to publish his tax returns and order his top party leaders to do the same. As the accusations that his party is facing illicit financing in the form of slush funds, the publication of tax document seems somewhat illogical – the one place that illegal party funding and unmarked envelopes are not going to show up is in official tax declarations.

Mariano Rajoy, instead of sacrificing the alleged wrong doers amongst his ranks, continues to back them, offering the ‘presumption of innocent,’ reasoning. In other countries, politicians have stepped down for much less than what some of his party members are facing and never is this judicial status used to prevent it. If a judge indicts somebody, it is because he considers that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that you may have committed a crime – we’re not talking about mere rumours in the press.

So, Sr. Rajoy continues to duck and weave and generally avoid answering questions proffered by the media – unless he is abroad where his, “I will make a statement but will accept no questions,” would be met with disbelief and total disobedience.

But one thing was thrown up by the Partido Popular’s publication of its accounting: between 2007 and 2011 Mariano Rajoy saw a salary increase of 27%. In fact, in 2011, during the height of the recession, he earned 239,100 euros compared with the 200,000 euros he received in 2007.

Party General Secretary, Dolores Cospedal, says that these weren’t pay rises but ‘electoral bonuses,’ although she admits that the party gave a pay rise to all its leaders and workers in 2008 – right at the outset of the crisis – although she would not be drawn on what percentage it was.

Astoundingly, she offered the following reason for increasing party salaries at a time when things were beginning to go pear shaped: Prime Minister Zapatero said at the time that no crisis existed. The fact that her party, then in opposition, was bitterly criticising Zapatero for not admitting the country had entered a financial crisis appears to have been conveniently forgotten, evidently.

(News: Spain)