Spain interior minister faces calls to resign over leak

Spain's interior minister faced calls to resign Wednesday over a conversation leaked four days before elections in which he appears to discuss with an anti-fraud official ways to incriminate his political rivals.

In the conversation published by online left-wing daily Publico, Jorge Fernandez Diaz and the head of Catalonia's anti-fraud office discuss possible leads or probes that could be launched against pro-independence politicians in the region.

The newspaper published another conversation on Wednesday night in which Diaz appeared to say he could "intervene with the public prosecutor" to request that they start a probe that could be leaked to the press, further putting pressure on the minister.

With general elections looming on Sunday, the allegations unleashed a political firestorm. Police unions and several rivals of Fernandez Diaz's conservative Popular Party (PP) have demanded that he quit.

"We have an interior minister, who should be protecting us all, apparently using his post to investigate political rivals," Pablo Iglesias, head of the anti-austerity Podemos party, told public broadcaster TVE.

"I think this should trigger an immediate resignation."

Fernandez Diaz slammed the leak as a "conspiracy".

But he acknowledged that the meeting, which dates back to 2014, had taken place.
"I remember having had this meeting, but as for the content of these conversations, I remember the general gist, which was to meet a magistrate that heads up the anti-fraud office of the regional government, whose mission is to fight fraud and corruption," he told Spanish radio.

"To claim that an interior minister is conspiring against members of Catalonia's government is surreal," he said, adding police had been asked to investigate exactly how the conversation was recorded and leaked.

Madrid and Catalonia's separatist politicians have long been at odds over a pro-independence drive in the wealthy Spanish region.

During the conversation, Daniel de Alfonso, the anti-fraud official, allegedly lays out several leads for possible offences committed by various pro-independence politicians or their relatives, but adds they are all "weak".

But Fernandez Diaz allegedly insists that some can still inflict "a lot of harm politically".

- 'Fish in troubled waters'-

The revelations come just before Sunday's elections, in which the PP is expected to come first, though without the absolute majority it needs -- weakened by the rise of upstart parties like Podemos and several corruption scandals.

Pedro Sanchez, head of the Socialist party, also called on Fernandez Diaz to resign, accusing him of "using the state apparatus to fight against his political rivals and not to fight against corruption within his own party".
The pro-independence head of the regional government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, also called on the minister to step down.

"We always had the suspicion but now it is clear that there has been a strategy of a dirty war," he said.

Hundreds of people, many waving yellow- and red-striped Catalan independence flags, demonstrated outside of the office of the delegation of Spain's central government in Barcelona on Wednesday night.

Oriol Junqueras, the regional finance minister and deputy president of Catalonia was among those who took part in the protest.

But acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy came to his defence, saying he had given a "clear" explanation.

"As we're four days before the end of the campaign, someone is trying to take advantage and fish in troubled waters to see what comes out," he said.

The elections are the second in six months, after polls in December resulted in a hung parliament after which parties failed to agree on a coalition government, forcing fresh elections.

Source: AFP