OPINION: The threat of the return of Circle Zero

The conclusions reached by the Central Operative Unit of the Civil Guard of Spain regarding the payment of bribes by FCC to Ricardo Martinelli’s circle zero to obtain public works contracts –among them, the famous hospital city of the Social Security Fund–are scandalous. It is, at least, $178 million in bribes, a figure to which must be added tens of millions of dollars that he received from Odebrecht – a case already proven in the United States and confessed by his own offspring and the executives of the Brazilian construction company – and of the contractors involved in the New Business and Blue Apple cases. All of this is unequivocal proof that our democracy is facing imminent danger. And it is time for the Public Ministry to become more involved in what is happening in Spain, at the risk that the cases may expire or the State ends up returning money to those who do not belong to it. And, by the way, the occasion is propitious to remember that, with Odebrecht’s millionaire secret contributions to the 2014 campaign, there were intentions to manipulate the elections, injecting monstrous sums of money into advertising works – many of them allegedly corrupt – that ran the government at the time. Is that what we want again for the country? – LA PRENSA, June 9.