The treasurer of the organization that financed Sánchez’s primaries defends the legality of the funds raised
The PP and Vox sought to delegitimize the financing of Pedro Sánchez’s 2017 primary campaign at the commission of inquiry of the The Koldo case in the Senate speculating on the possibility, without providing evidence, that the Bancal de Rosas, the association created and closed that year to channel revenues and expenses to finance the candidacy, may have been used to divert money to the PSOE or have been used for money laundering or have introduced illegal money. Pedro Luis Egea, former treasurer of the Bancal de Rosas association, denied that “absolutely no euros” had been diverted from Ferraz and explained, referring to his presence in the Upper House in 2018 in a commission on the financing of political parties, that the income obtained was 128,908 euros contributed by 2,385 donors, which means an average of 50 euros per capita.
PP senator Salvador de Foronda confused the direct donations (27,568 euros) with the number of donors, thus calculating that Bancal de Rosas would have obtained an income of almost 1.4 million euros. He also speculated whether there were those who thought they would gain political advantage from their contribution to the association. “Who could claim to have made a donation to expect a political benefit, and for donations of 50 euros?” replied the former treasurer, who also underlined that the list of donors “is not known to anyone”.
Egea also denied, despite the insistence of the PP and Vox, that the former secretary of the Socialist Organization Santos Cerdán participated in the management of the Bancal de Rosas. “He had no relationship with the association, he did not manage it. There are many people who were part of Sánchez’s candidacy,” he reiterated. “We never had a relationship, I don’t know if he intervened (in Bancal de Rosas),” he said. Egea insisted that Bancal de Rosas “was not a political party and was not part of the PSOE” and was “an association with its own legal personality which had no formal relations with the PSOE and did not transfer funds to the PSOE nor receive them” from the party, after recalling that the Court of Auditors “did not ask for any documentation” from the association.
