Two leading Spanish politicians are facing calls to resign over claims they faked their master’s degrees.
Cristina Cifuentes, the Popular party (PP) president of the Madrid regional government, and Pablo Casado, an MP and the party’s deputy communications chief, are accused of obtaining master’s degrees from the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid without ever attending classes or writing a dissertation.
When Eldiario.es broke the story on 21 March, Cifuentes refuted the accusation and threatened to sue the news website. She then produced a certificate.
However, two of three people whose names appeared on the certificate said their signatures had been forged. The university has said it can find no trace of Cifuentes’s dissertation and she has not produced it.
Casado, meanwhile, told a press conference on Monday he was never expected to attend class or sit exams.
Laura Nuño, the deputy director of the Institute of Public Law, the university department in which Cifuentes alleges she studied for her master’s, resigned on Tuesday after saying she had discovered her signature had been forged on documents purporting to show that Cifuentes took the course in 2012.
“I never even taught a single class to Cristina Cifuentes, not even on that course,” Nuño said, citing “an absolute lack of trust”.
The case has caused consternation in academic circles. “Cases such as this give the impression that there is favouritism and, even though this is not generally the case among universities here, it’s damaging,” said Pablo Simón, a professor of political science at University Carlos III in Madrid.
“The good news is that it shows that people are much less willing to tolerate corruption,” he said. “A few years ago it wouldn’t have attracted any attention. On the other hand, it shows that our political leaders are still unwilling to take responsibility for their actions and refuse to resign.”
Despite opposition demands for Cifuentes to quit, the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is standing by her and she has so far refused to go.
“The Cifuentes case follows a typical PP strategy,” said Simón. “First they deny everything, then they say it’s a conspiracy, then they offer the accused their full support, then they let them fall on their swords. I’m convinced that in the end Cifuentes will resign.”
If Cifuentes falls, the PP could lose control of the Madrid regional government. The scandal is another setback for Rajoy’s conservative government, already dogged by the Catalan question.
Last week a German court refused to extradite the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont on charges of rebellion.
Meanwhile, Rajoy is unable to get his budget approved because five Basque MPs will not vote for it until direct rule, imposed on Catalonia last October, is lifted, and that can only happen once a Catalan government is installed.
On Friday, Catalan secessionists will once again attempt to invest Jordi Sànchez, currently remanded in jail in Madrid on charges of sedition, as president. If, as expected, the courts refuse to release him, the investiture will not happen. If nothing is resolved by next month, Catalans will go to the polls for the fourth time in less than six years.
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