The situation of the mayor of Móstoles is becoming untenable, according to the opposition. A court specializing in violence against women has admitted a complaint for sexual and workplace harassment filed by a PP councilwoman against Manuel Bautista and his party. The case, revealed by EL PAÍS in February, caused enormous commotion in Madrid politics and directly affected Génova, where the councilwoman’s internal file passed from hand to hand until it was finally archived without a serious investigation being opened.
The general secretary of the PSOE of Madrid and minister of Pedro Sánchez, Óscar López, and surely the candidate who will face Isabel Díaz Ayuso next year at the polls, asked the president of Madrid this Sunday to act as soon as possible: “Not one more day can pass with the mayor of Móstoles at the head of his position and with the PP hidden and without giving an explanation or clarifying any responsibility.”
This judicial investigation does not fall on just any member of the party, but on one with multiple contacts in Sol, the headquarters of the Government of the Community of Madrid. Bautista belongs to a faction of the PP that includes number 2, Ana Millán, or the party’s spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly, Carlos Díaz-Pache. They exert significant influence on Ayuso. Dismissing the mayor would mean confronting party colleagues who have accompanied her since they coincided in Esperanza Aguirre’s communication area.
The councilwoman who reported the events tried by all means to get her party to take action, from early to almost late 2024. She wrote to the PP and it was precisely Ana Millán who was in charge of listening to the raw way in which she recounted how the mayor, at first, promoted her to be number 2 and, later, removed her from any activity when she refused to have sexual relations with him. In the party, no one can deny that Bautista had these intentions with the councilwoman; it was he himself who insinuated that they had “something.” Millán was accompanied to these meetings by the general secretary, the party’s number one, Alfonso Serrano, but it was she who led the crisis and even admitted to the councilwoman that it was a case of harassment “by Manuel,” but that it was best not to go to court and bury the matter.
For Óscar López, we are facing a serious case of inaction by the popular party: “A court is not only investigating the mayor. Also the PP for how shamefully it has managed a case of sexual and workplace harassment complaint. We demand that Ayuso dismiss the mayor. And that the PP clarify responsibilities and give explanations to the people of Madrid, especially the women of Madrid.”
Manuela Bergerot, the spokesperson for Más Madrid, welcomed the news that “justice is finally progressing.” She insisted that the complainant, before taking the case to court, “went to Ayuso, her party colleague, and she abandoned her. She sent a thug, Alfonso Serrano, and Ana Millán to tell her that she looked prettier when she was quiet. They have sided with Bautista, a mayor from Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s bunker. They always side with the aggressor and not with the victims.”
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In the PP, they defend Bautista to the death. They believe he was wrong to mix work and personal relationships, but that the matter went no further than that, that it was a romantic rejection. In other minority parts of the party, everything that has happened has caused discomfort, but in the strong part, the one that has control, they have not doubted his innocence at any time. “He’s a good guy,” they repeat in Sol.
In the Móstoles City Council, they also support the mayor, without that entailing much mystery, as the investigated person is their boss. But for now, two council members have shown their rejection of the mayor and have resigned from their positions, understanding that, at least, workplace harassment did occur. It was evident, both in the Government itself and in the opposition, the way in which the woman was removed from all her duties and stopped being invited to municipal events, even those in which she was supposed to play a role.
The complaint, to which EL PAÍS has had access, was filed by her lawyer, Antonio Suárez-Valdés. It is a document of almost a hundred pages for alleged crimes committed by both Bautista and the Popular Party itself as a legal entity, in application of articles 184.5 and 31 bis of the Penal Code.
In the admission order, Judge Eloísa Márquez de Prado states that “the facts resulting from the previous proceedings present characteristics that suggest the possible existence of crimes of sexual harassment, workplace harassment, against moral integrity, injuries, coercion, and disclosure of secrets” and agrees to initiate preliminary proceedings. She summons the woman to testify on June 29, requests that she be examined by a forensic doctor “in order to determine the injurious consequences suffered as a result of the reported events,” and that the complaint be transferred to the defendants.
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