A WhatsApp conversation between Francina Armengol, current president of the Congress of Deputies and secretary general of the PSIB-PSOE and former president of the Balearic Government and businessman Víctor Aldama revealed by her spokesperson on the Iker Jiménez Horizonte program has revealed that the leader of the Balearic Socialists lied shamelessly in the Senate investigation committee when she claimed not to know him.
In the messages, Armengol asks directly for children’s masks and prices, in full pandemic: “Do you know if anyone sells children’s masks?”, wrote the leader of the PSOE in the Balearic Islands, to which Aldama replied: “I’ll fix it for you. Leave me a few hours.
WhatsApp screenshot sent to us by Ramón Bermejo at #Horizonte pic.twitter.com/4pm36GwAL8
– Iker Jiménez (@navedelmisterio) December 19, 2024
Armengol asks Aldama directly at 9:48 a.m., “By the way, do you know if anyone sells children’s face masks?” starting a conversation about how to access children’s masks. “I’ll fix it for you. Give me a few hours “. “It is to have an idea of prices…”, indicates Armengol, to which the accused businessman responds: “Man for children it will be almost given away. Nobody is going to want to do business with that. Let me have a few hours, please”. “Only missing, kisses,” ends Armengol including a revealing emoticon. This revelation adds to the complicity shown in the conversation Armengol had with Koldo García. “Okay honey, I’ll keep you informed,” the former advisor to former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos told her.
Armengol denies it
Armengol has denied the version offered by the spokesman of the businessman, Ramón Bermejo, which would leave her in a very bad place and that has caused that the Balearic Government has demanded explanations. Through official sources of the Presidency of the Congress, Armengol has assured that “ she has never whatsapped with Aldama”. “The WhatsApp conversation about children’s masks is not of Armengol with Aldama. The president and the Balearic Government sought during those days children’s masks because the hospitals asked us for it, but not with Aldama,” they wield. “We were working to obtain protective material and, in this case, the hospitals asked for children’s masks and everyone from ministries and institutions were asked if they knew who could have them. They were not contracted because the only possibility that appeared was rejected by the technicians because it was considered expensive, which once again ratifies what we have always said: that we did everything at the request of health professionals and we contracted based on technical criteria. In short, neither we talked about it with Aldama nor were children’s masks finally contracted”, they say. Thus, Armengol’s version is that Aldama has made a photomontage to accuse her, Aldama had registered in his address book the name of Armengol when the number actually belonged to another person whose identity is unknown, or someone, also unknown, used the president’s terminal to talk to third parties without the interlocutor knowing it.
Lies in the Senate and disclosure of messages
During her appearance in the investigation commission, Armengol categorically denied knowing Aldama, assuring that she had never spoken to him.
Ramifications in the PSOE
The controversy is aggravated by other conversations between Aldama and PSOE figures, such as former minister José Luis Ábalos. The Central Operative Unit (UCO) investigates these communications in the framework of crimes such as influence peddling and embezzlement. In addition, photographs broadcast in the Horizonte program show Aldama at the PSOE headquarters together with Venezuelan leaders, consolidating his political connections.
Political reactions: “The gravity is extreme”.
Antoni Costa, vice president of the Balearic Government, has urged Armengol to clarify the authenticity of the messages: “If they are true, the seriousness is extreme”. Costa suggests that Armengol should appear to explain if her version in the Senate coincides with reality.
