Spain’s version of WikiLeaks, XNet, and other whistleblowers have been digging up evidence which shows that politicians on both the left and the right have been colluding with big business in a tainted system which allows for revolving doors from government to private employment and back.

But following December’s election results, a growing chorus of critics are arguing that Spain’s newly-formed political landscape could lead to a shake-up of the cozy political-business relationships that some see as a holdover from the Franco era.

“The activism against corruption is an incipient and novel phenomenon in which we have been pioneers, although citizens are getting involved in ever growing numbers,” explains Simona Levy, a member of XNet.

Levy also belongs to 15MpaRato, the citizen-led lawsuit against Bankia, the Spanish banking conglomerate formed in 2010 from a group of savings banks rocked by the financial crisis.

“When the crash hit Spain, Bankia accounted for 5 per cent of the hole in public finances – €23.5 billion (US$26.4 billion). The bank was looted by the directors, leading to the bailout and the cuts that have created so much inequality in Spain.”

“These rackets have led to the plundering of the public purse that pays for basic services such as hospitals and schools,” she says.

Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2008, the use of social media by social collectives, coupled with the rise of the 15M movement, has changed the nature of the fight against corruption in Spain.

For example, thanks an anonymous leak to the citizen-driven Partido X, eldiario.es – a successful online media outlet that emerged during the crisis – received details of 8,000 email exchanges between the directors of Bankia.

The subsequent publication of one email in particular resulted in legal proceedings against Rodrigo Rato, the economy minister during the government of José María Aznar from 1996 to 2004, and head of the International Monetary Fund from 2004 to 2007.

Revolving door and fuel poverty

Activists also blame corruption for rising electricity prices in Spain, which as Florent Marcellesi, a spokesperson for the Spanish Greens, Equo-Primavera Verde, explains: “the energy oligopoly directly affects citizens’ basic services.”

“The constant transfers between politics and big business means that legislation is drawn up to meet the interests of the big electricity companies and to the detriment of renewable energies and consumers,” Marcellesi tells Equal Times.

The price of electricity has risen by 56 per cent since 2008, and the consumer organisation OCU says this is the leading cause for the rise in fuel poverty during the crisis.

An estimated six million people in Spain are struggling to paying their bills, according to a study by the Spanish environmental sciences association ACA, while more than 10 per cent of the average income is spent on energy bills.

That’s why in 2013 the Plataforma por un Nuevo Modelo Energético (Platform for a New Energy Model), a group of 417 social organizations, presented over 100,000 signatures to Spain’s anti-corruption public prosecutor’s office to investigate whether the presence of former politicians on the boards of electricity companies had led to “offences such as malfeasance or influence peddling.”

Marcellesi explains how the revolving door works. “It is a practice – not limited to Spain – whereby high officials, elected or appointed, from the government and the public administration, become board members of major companies.

“Or vice versa, such as (Socialist former Prime Minister) Felipe González at Gas Natural and José María Aznar at Endesa, or Luis de Guindos, who sat on the Endesa board before becoming the Economy Minister.

“This practice creates fertile ground for corruption and for politicians giving favourable treatment to businesses, awarding contracts to these companies, for example, whilst in public office,” she contends.

Spanish media: toothless watchdog?

Another factor highlighted by Transparency International’s anti-corruption index is press freedom.

“For a long time in Spain the media has been neglecting its duty, practising self-censorship so as not to upset those in power. During the economic boom, characters entered the media stage who had nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with the fast-buck culture,” Juan Luis Sánchez, deputy director of eldiario.es, tells Equal Times.

“We’ve been through a very bad period during which media reporting on corruption has been partisan, a weapon used against the opposition, turning a blind eye to many issues.

“There has been collusion between journalists and politicians: in Catalonia, Convergencia [the ruling party] has enjoyed media impunity for years – thanks to the financing provided by the Catalan government – as has the PP (the conservative Partido Popular) in Levante or in small towns where the media depended on public subsidies,” he adds.

Sánchez stresses the importance of the whistleblowing journalism carried out through platforms such as Wikileaks or Filtrala in the fight against corruption.

“They are new and interesting ways of doing journalism on the Internet, obliging the informer to break the silence, because if he himself doesn’t publish the information, he knows it will come out by some other means.

They have a very positive impact on transparency in news reporting. Citizens play a much more active role now, being able say things without passing through professional filters,” he explains.

“The vacuum left by the mainstream media in terms of keeping watch over those in power has been filled by small media outlets, especially in the digital realm, because the watchdog had lost its teeth,” adds Sánchez.

“Citizens are paying for the lean years”

For Hugo Martínez Abarca, a deputy in Madrid’s regional parliament with Podemos, the roots of corruption in Spain run deep. “Nothing has been done to shake up the power structures of the Franco regime, nor its foundations, which remain in place: the opposition was not so strong and the threat of violence was real,” he tells Equal Times.

There is one silver lining though, according to Martínez Abarca. “At least here the crisis has not given impetus to any xenophobic or racist parties like in other countries, because people know that the corrupt are responsible for this situation.”

But the real impact of corruption is its high social cost. Whilst Valencian pupils study in prefab huts, “200 schools could have been built” with the billions in cost overruns accumulated by the school construction company Ciegsa, according to local politicans.

“During the boom years, millions were spent on unnecessary infrastructure rather than on developing social security – which is very fragile in Spain – and now citizens are paying for the lean years. We have a weakened welfare state now, because we are still paying for those infrastructures, at the same time as pensions are being cut,” insists Martínez Abarca.

The same corruption devouring the ruling People’s Party today, also blew apart Felipe González’s PSOE in 1991. Perhaps the long-term solution lies with the beginning of a new post-2015 elections political era.

“The end of the absolute majorities in Spain is bringing an end to the absolute finance disorder and the climate of impunity. We need a solution offering real control over our economic and political structures, over the corrupt and the corruptors,” says Martínez Abarca.