The political earthquake generated by the scandal of the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE Santos Cerdán has strongly shaken Navarra, the homeland of Cerdán and the place where the alleged plot of the collection of commissions in public works awards with Koldo García, also affiliated in the Foral and Exconcejal community began. The impact on the PSN has been direct and has already charged a first victim, the 'number two' of the general secretary and regional president, María Chivite. Ramón Alzórriz hid him that his partner had worked between 2021 and 2024 at the Servinabar 2000 construction company, which according to the UCO controls in 45% Santos Cerdán and is one of the central pieces of the investigation.
The Cerdán scandal, which according to the Civil Guard transferred the 'Modus Operandi' that he practiced in the regional community to the rest of the State through the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos, splashed again to the Navarre socialists with a case of corruption, stigma that drag since the time of Gabriel Urralburu, Javier Otano and Luis Roldán.
Roldán, although Aragonese by birth, had his trampoline in Navarra. There was delegated the Government for almost four years, which served to boost the General Directorate of the Civil Guard, a position he accessed in 1986. In 1993 'Diario 16' he uncovered that he had a hidden assets of 400 million pesetas (2.4 million euros to the change of 2002) and that together with his testaferro, the commercial director of the construction company Huarte, Jorge Esparza, led a plot of charge of commissions and appropriation of reserved funds. Roldán ended up escaped in Portugal, France, Laos or Thailand. He even had his own Mortadelo and Filemon comic. Francisco Ibález titled 'Corruption to Mogollón'.
That case had a derivative, known as “Navarra plot of the Roldán case”, which impacted fully on the Government of Navarra, its president, also the socialist Gabriel Uralburu. He and his public works counselor, Antonio Aragón, were sentenced in 1998 for the collection of commissions to construction companies in exchange for the granting of different public works, which is now investigating the Supreme Court to Santos Cerdán, Koldo García and José Luis Ábalos. The following President Navarro, Javier Otano, resigned after less than a year in office after a judge discovered a bank account in his name and that of his wife in Switzerland, allegedly related to the Roldán case. Today there are several voices of Navarra policy that agree to point out that the case of Cerdán “Retrorade” to Roldán, Uralburu, the first regional president convicted of corruption, and Otano.
“I remember those cases as painful because they linked to my land, my community, with corruption cases. The thing about now will be challenged to those times and the indignation is tremendous,” said Navarre Oxue Barkos (Geroa Bai), in a zero wave interview this week. There is the circumstance that the first contract awards to the Servinabar 2000 company in Navarra occurred under the mandate of Barkos.
They were works in the sports and cultural venue of Pamplona Navarra Arena and others for the construction of a school in the town of Arbizu, although in this case through Alegure, a 'sister' society of Servinabar 2000 but with another additional partner, Iñaki Alzaga. During his government they also produced, according to the UCO, efforts by Cerdán and García so that the Geolcali company, in collaboration with Action and Servinabar 2000, achieved the permits of the Navarre Administration to boost a minera exploitation of potassa known as Mina Muga. Barkos defends the “cleaning” of those awards and remembers that the PSN was not part of his government and that they made “a hard opposition.”
Chivite, from tears to indignation
The UCO report revealed last week fell like a real bomb in the PSN, where the feeling among its leaders was of absolute disbelief. As his secretary general and president Navarra summarized, María Chivite did not recognize in him who was his friend and political reference. Reflection of the astonishment is that a few hours before the Civil Guard report was known, and when Eldiario.es had already advanced that there were recordings that involved Cerdán in the alleged plot, which was vice -secretary general of the Navarrese socialists, Ramón Alzóriz, defended the innocence of Cerdán and attributed the information to a “hunt by a herd.
The severity of the facts reported by the report forced Chivite to appear at a press conference. Fully out of the situation, the president could not retain the tears and broke when talking about who has been her main political valid. And Cerdán was not only his friend, he was also a key figure for Chivite to return the Socialists to the Palace of Navarra more than a decade later. It was he who convinced Pedro Sánchez in 2019 not to repeat the 'Agostazo' – when in 2007 Ferraz vetoed a government agreement of the Navarrese socialists with Nafarroa Bai (PNV brand with EA and Aralar) and the United Left to dethrone UPN – and allow, this time, an agreement with Geroa Bai, Podemos and IU and with the support in the form of abstention of EH Bildu. After the uprising of that veto, six budget agreements with the Abertzale left would arrive, pacts that Sanchez replied in the Congress of Deputies. And in December 2023 the Socialists knocked down the last wall: they agreed with EH Bildu a motion of censure in Pamplona to evict the new mayor to Joseba Asiron to the right of UPN and invest in the right mayor. All these steps would not have been possible without the figure of Cerdán in Ferraz.
But Chivite's tears took little to become indignation, a feeling of “betrayal” that more socialist leaders share in the regional community. It was on Wednesday 18 when it was known that the agents of the Civil Guard had found in the storage room of the House of the Antxon Alonso businessman a private document that Cerdán bought in 2016 45% of the shares of the mercantile Servinabar. That document gave a new dimension to the case because the Government of Navarra awarded seven works to the company owned by Cerdán (in UTE with Acciona) worth 86 million euros. The president denies that Cerdán never told her about Servinabar, although she recognizes several meetings with Antxon Alonso. “I have never spoken with Santos Cerdán of Awards, I have never spoken with Santos Cerdán de Belato.” The duplication of Belate tunnels is the most controversial contract of all those awarded to the UTE of Acciona and Servinabar and its amount rises to 68 million euros.
Loss of confidence in its 'number two'
But the dripping of disappointments did not end the information that places Cerdán in Servinabar's shareholders. That same Wednesday, his 'number two' in the PSN, Ramón Alzóriz, informed him that his partner had worked at the construction company of Alonso and Cerdán between 2021 and 2024. Both Chivite and Alzórriz said that it was something that Alzóriz had hidden until then. President Navarra and general secretary of the PSN forced her to present her resignation as vice -secretary general and spokesman in Parliament. He described as “error” that he would not have communicated that circumstance before, which, as he insisted “is not a crime,” when the company had already been indicated by the UCO for days. “I said who falls to maintain the honorability of the party and the government and is being fulfilled,” said María Chivite when talking about her decision.
The resignation of his right hand in the party further increased the internal crisis in the Navarre socialists and also the distrust of their government partners. Geroa Bai and with you/Zurekin, as well as EH Bildu (budgetary partner), raised the tone and forced the socialists to register the creation of an investigation commission on all the awards to serve and act.
At the moment Chivite maintains the support of its partners, but there is some concern for the fear that new revelations arise that further commit to the Government of Navarra and give wings to an opposition of rights (UPN, PP and Vox) that has hardened the discourse and demands the resignation of the president. “We are not in that scenario,” says a source of with you/zurekin to this newspaper, although he adds that they will have “zero tolerance” with corruption.
From the socialist ranks they know that an electoral advance would move the PSN away from the possibility of achieving a parliamentary majority with their current partners that allowed the coalition government to reissue and trust to maintain its support.
