The Congress leadership is running out of patience with the far-right agitators Vito Zoppellari Quiles and Bertrand Ndongo. Both, protected by the press credentials granted to them, roam the Chamber harassing left-wing politicians, disrupting press conferences, and confronting journalists from various media outlets. Quiles and Ndongo have been involved in new incidents this week, resulting in three more complaints filed with the Congress services, based on the provisions introduced last year in the Regulations to curb such behavior. Quiles already had eight files following various complaints filed by political groups or by the Parliamentary Journalists Association (APP) itself. Ndongo had two more. The Board, at next Wednesday’s meeting, is set to approve the first sanctions against them, which will most likely lead to the temporary withdrawal of their accreditations.
The complaints have been accumulating for months, which has tested the patience of those who usually suffer the actions of both agitators, deputies or journalists. Quiles is accredited by EDA TV and Ndongo by Periodista Digital. The procedure established when the Chamber’s Regulations were reformed, a text with the force of law, is very protective. Complaints must be validated by the Board; reported by the Advisory Communication Council, a newly created body where political groups, journalist associations, and Chamber officials are represented; instructed by a lawyer; and subjected to the allegations presented by the interested parties.
The Council met this Wednesday and decided to submit to the Board two of the already concluded files on Quiles and one more on Ndongo. These are the first incidents that led to complaints against them, at the end of 2025, already with the new Regulations in force. In Quiles’s case, it was for recording Pedro Sánchez on one occasion and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on another in places where it is not allowed. In Ndongo’s case, it was for disrupting a press conference of Sumar spokesperson Verónica Barbero. Pending the final report from the lawyers, parliamentary sources take for granted that the Chamber’s governing body, with a majority of PSOE and Sumar, will approve at its next Wednesday meeting the first sanctions, which involve withdrawal of accreditations, from 10 days in the case of minor offenses, up to three months in serious ones, and even permanently in very serious cases.
Quiles, who in the last European elections was a candidate for the party Se Acabó La Fiesta of the far-right Alvise Pérez, has recently approached the PP after being recruited by this party for the campaign closing in the last Aragonese regional elections. Contrary to the repeatedly expressed opinion of professional organizations, the Popular Party, starting with its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, grants Quiles the status of journalist. Miguel Tellado, Feijóo’s number two, has even praised his “courage and boldness.”
The PP, like Vox, has decided to boycott the Advisory Council meetings, which neither group attends. Popular sources anticipate their rejection of the sanctions: “We will not approve or support anything that means or could imply any kind of censorship of a journalist. We believe there were already sufficient instruments in the current Regulations to sanction anyone who might have inappropriate behavior, but in this case, we interpret that it is only someone who asks uncomfortable questions to the Government.”
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The latest complaint against Quiles was filed this very week by the PSOE. A PP deputy, Alma Alfonso, lent him her office so he could record a video against the wife of the Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez, following the incident he had with her and two friends in a restaurant, amid mutual accusations of assault. Quiles is accredited as a print journalist, which prevents him from making videos inside the parliamentary premises.
The other episode this week was protagonized by Ndongo with Aina Vidal, deputy spokesperson of Sumar, who has reported the events to the Congress services and the Police. “I felt assaulted, intimidated,” Vidal recounted this Thursday referring to how Ndongo approached her on the street on Tuesday as she was leaving the parliamentary headquarters and trying to get into a taxi. The images of the incident show how Ndongo momentarily obstructs Vidal’s way, preventing her from opening the vehicle door to leave. “The situation was violent,” added the deputy, who in the complaint to the Police accuses Ndongo of “harassment.”
Shortly before, in the Congress press room, the agitator had insulted Vidal at the end of one of her appearances. “What an idiot!” Ndongo is heard saying in a recording, later confronting one of the journalists present in an intimidating manner. Because of this last incident, the APP has filed another complaint against him. That same Thursday, when the Sumar member was appearing before the media to denounce these events, Vito Quiles interrupted, loudly demanding the spokesperson’s opinion on protests carried out against PP leaders in the past.
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