Friends in high places SPANIARDS are used to former public officials getting rich from doing business with the state. When news emerged of investigations into a former official in Castile and León who had secured lucrative wind-farm licences from his ex-colleagues and a former official in Andalusia whose companies netted regional contracts for state-subsidised worker-training courses, few were surprised. Corruption and cronyism (the distribution of political favours to businesses) explain much of the Spanish public’s growing disdain for the two parties that have run the country for the past 32 years: the ruling Popular Party (PP) and the opposition Socialists (PSOE).
Distrust reached a nadir with the temporary arrest two weeks ago of Rodrigo Rato, a former PP finance minister who went on to run the IMF in Washington. Police searched Mr Rato’s office and home in an investigation into unexplained income. He was already under scrutiny over freewheeling use of company credit cards during his chairmanship of Bankia, a bank that needed a €22 billion ($ 27 billion) rescue under his stewardship. Mr Rato was seen as one…
The Economist: Europe
