RAJOY: Where there is political corruption ...

Image: Corruption charges haunt Netanyahu’s presidential future

Where there is political corruption, can outright brutality be far behind? Leaders without conscience, who get away for years with political dishonesty, will not hesitate to indulge in more deadly criminality sooner or later.

Spain's Rajoy and Israel's Netanyahu are two examples, except that Bibi is still managing to stay afloat, while Rajoy's just reward has been far too long arriving.

No one will ever forget the the snipers who picked off protesting Palestinians nor the Spanish police force thuggery inflicted on Catalans on voting day.

NOT EVER!

The eyes of Spain  - and the world - are being opened; Israel must wake up too.
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ElPais:

• The PP operated “a financial and accounting structure that ran parallel to the official one, at least since 1989”
• What’s more, they openly question the “credibility” of the testimony offered by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other top party officials at hearings last year.

Ara.cat:

• One of the stiffest sentences was handed down to the party’s former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, the poster boy of corruption within the PP, who has other charges pending, such as the 'Box B' case. Bárcenas was sentenced to 33 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of €44 million. His wife has also been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Bárcenas tried to excuse his wife from criminal responsibility for having concealed millions of euros in foreign bank accounts, in exchange for him accepting a stiffer sentence. However, the court refused to consider his request.

The Guardian:

• Spain’s centre-right Ciudadanos party has warned the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, that his party’s recent corruption conviction has fatally wounded the government and plunged the country into an “institutional crisis” that can be resolved only through a snap general election.
• Speaking to the Guardian as Rajoy prepares to face a no-confidence debate on Thursday and Friday, the Ciudadanos leader, Albert Rivera, said the government was “over and done with”.

​El Nacional:

• After being present in the chamber this morning, Rajoy hasn't retaken his seat for the afternoon session. Certain members of the central executive have returned with thousand-yard stares and PP spokespeople have been seen walking around busily.

ZeroHedge - "Goodbye Rajoy"
... barring some miracle, his political career will end on June 1, 2018

• Basques officially sided with Sanchez, when the Basque Nationalists informed both Rajoy’s People’s Party and the Socialists that they’ve decided to vote against the prime minister, according to state broadcaster Television Espanola. With the Catalans of PdeCat also expected to support Sanchez, that would be enough to defeat Rajoy, as there are now 177 votes against Rajoy with 176 needed.

Not only all of this, but Rajoy's predicted successor - who has been around during the whole of the financial scam without blowing any kind of whistle -  has been caught red-handed lying about her education credentials and - wait for it - being caught SHOPLIFTING.

• Sources close to Cifuentes admitted that the person in the video is her, and police sources have said that the shoplifting incident did happen, but that there is no official police record of it.

Perhaps this will pave the way for future governments to be more circumspect in their behaviour.

Transparency.org:

• From Spain to the UK and Turkey, support for populist and nationalist movements is on the rise in Europe and Central Asia. While the reasons are manifold and complex, corruption is central to the story – both the failure of governments to properly address corruption and their complicity in corrupt or clientelist schemes.

But it's amazing how people with no conscience have the ability to brazen things out.  Meh! You win some, you lose some - that's politics, eh?

​Image: Christina Cifuentes