Begoña GómezBegoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, attended on Wednesday the Assembly of Madridwhere she was questioned in the commission of inquiry on her relationship with the Complutense University of Madrid. The wife of Pedro Sánchez has denounced that “both this commission and the collection of judicial complaints” against her “have an obvious political objective”and after vindicating her work career, “carved with a lot of effort and dedication”, Gómez announced that she would exercise her right not to testify.
The commission has already begun in a climate of maximum tension, with a brawl between members of the Socialist Group for the presence of the media inside the room. On the other side of the wall, a hundred journalists had been waiting for the entrance of Begoña Gómez, who entered a few minutes late.
The first interrogation was carried out by Mercedes Zarzalejo, from the Popular Party, who started with a battery of incisive questions: “Mrs. Gómez, this is simple: How did you work as a university professor without being one? How did you work as a chair director without qualifications or means? How did you co-direct masters in which you could not even have been a student? Why did you appropriate a software financed by all the people of Madrid? Did she abuse her status as the president’s wife?”.
The popular deputy has stressed that her party does not intend to “interfere in any criminal case”, but “to know the circumstances in which they have occurred. decisions that have affected the reputational image of the Complutense University.“. In a very brief intervention, Gómez defended his teaching and professional work.
“For 25 years I have been working in consulting and teaching. I have coordinated teams, I have led projects and I have advised more than fifty professionals in the private sector and in the third sector”, began the speaker. She went on to explain that “12 years ago” she began a collaboration with the Complutense University of Madrid “as co-director of a master’s degree program to train professionals specialized in social projects and sustainability projects”.
In 2020, Begoña Gómez continued, “this collaboration is being extended with the creation of an extraordinary chair”. “An extraordinary chair that is an usual practice within public universitiesand, moreover, unpaid”. Having explained this, Gómez said he was “perfectly aware” that “both this commission and the collection of denunciations and the amount of hoaxes” have “an obvious political objective”. In between, Mercedes Zarzalejos has interrupted the response of the president’s wife, but the president of the commission, Susana Pérez Quislant, has called her to order.
Finally, Gómez has concluded her only intervention claiming the “effort” and dedication” she has devoted to her career, “as one more”, as “millions of women every day in our country”. “Advised by my counsel, I am going to avail myself of my right not to answer your questions. Sooner rather than later, the truth will set the record straight.“, culminated the wife of Pedro Sanchez.
From that moment on, Gómez has remained silent and with a serious countenance while the popular spokeswoman threw questions and accusations at her. After enunciating a long list of questions that have not been answered, the popular deputy concluded by accusing Gómez of ‘disguising’ herself as a chair director and closing: “She is taking advantage of the institutions of the State for her benefit”.
Ana Cuartero, from Vox, has taken over from the popular deputy placing Pedro Sánchez as “the number one of the plot”. “Her husband has used him as a front man.”She has spat to Gómez, whom she has branded as “an expert in influence peddling”. At one point in his speech, Cuartero said that Sanchez is an “autocrat”, at which point the president of the commission has been forced again to call to order: “I think it is unnecessary”.
The president has intervened again when Cuartero, coming to the end of his turn, has said to Gómez: “You have acted slavishly as a figurehead for your husband in this corruption scheme directed in the offices of La Moncloa, be careful not to end up as a scapegoat”.
The intervention of Marta Bernardo, the PSOE spokeswoman, has also been full of interruptions and calls to order by the president of the commission, especially at times when the auditor has referred to the nursing homes of the Community of Madrid, the government of Isabel Diaz Ayuso and other issues outside the scope of the commission.
Bernardo has asked Gomez if he believes that the PP, by promoting the commission, “seeks to know the truth about this case that is invented, or to harm the President of the Government.” When “the judge [Juan Carlos] Peinado has no choice but to close the case because he finds nothing,” concluded the socialist, “Mrs. Ayuso and all this entourage” will have to ask for “apologies”.
Manuela Bergerot, from Más Madrid, has also focused her intervention on the PP and the president of the Community of Madrid. She asked Begoña Gómez -who has kept silent at all times- if she agrees that the Complutense is “underfunded”, and reproached that “Mrs. Ayuso is not worried about it” and that “she is not worried about the Complutense”. “the PP does not want to talk about the structural problems of the university”.
“The PP already has what it wants, which is a day of headlines to cover up the incompetence of mr. [Carlos] Mazón, as happened with the protocols of shame of Isabel Díaz Ayuso”, has launched the spokeswoman of Más Madrid.