One day, during a parliamentary debate on the collapse of Barcelona’s Carmel tunnel, Catalan President Pasqual Maragall accused Artur Mas’ party (CDC) of receiving illegal commissions in exchange for public works contracts, causing a major hoo-ha. So many right-minded folk put their hands to their heads, feigning shock, that Maragall was obliged to retract his accusation. Businessmen who had explained all this in private were nowhere to be found and silence prevailed.
Those were the years when, as it appears now, everyone knew that some of the Pujol offspring were doing business in the shadows of the administration, and Marta Ferrusola —Pujol’s wife— got all indignant because she understood the power shift brought about by the tripartite coalition government as a usurpation. Following the lead provided by a whistle-blower, and after years of delays, the sentence in the Palau case has proven the existence of the plundering of the institution and its use as a pipeline for the illegal funding of CDC.
Much remains unknown, despite everything. Fèlix Millet´s silence commands a high price and protects his relationships with patrons who were equally generous with other parties. The other man whose silence is precious is Daniel Osàcar, the loyal treasurer who played the circuit breaker, or as Joan Llinares put it, the lightning rod. Artur Mas has assumed the political consequences of the Palau case, but the PDECat will have to prove that it has not inherited either the fixers nor the bad practices that brought about the downfall of CDC. The device of JxCat is the embryo of a renovation of power that will be essential for building a country worthy of the efforts of so many.
