The sudden resignation of a senior Spanish politician amid a flurry of accusations of sexual assault has stunned the country and raised questions over whether colleagues knew about allegations against him before they came to light.
Íñigo Errejón, the parliamentary spokesman for Sumar, the left-wing platform which is the junior partner in the government, announced he was stepping down from frontline politics in a cryptic written statement in which he referred to his mental health, “mistakes” and the breakdown of his “sentimental and emotional structure”.
It then emerged that the resignation was linked to a social media post earlier this week by a journalist, Cristina Fallarás, who had quoted an anonymous claim by another woman who said she had suffered sexual violence by “a politician who lives in Madrid”. Ms Fallarás has since said that she has gathered similar testimonies against Mr Errejón from at least another eight women.
Shortly after his resignation, a well-known actor, Elisa Mouliaá, accused Mr Errejón of sexual assault, and said she had filed a complaint with the police. Ms Mouliaá said he had locked her in a room and tried to have sex with her in 2021.
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Mr Errejón (40) shot to prominence a decade ago as the deputy leader of the far-left Podemos party, whose success created the biggest upheaval in Spanish parliamentary politics since the early 1980s. Known as an astute strategist, he fell out with the party and in 2019 formed Más Madrid, which in turn became part of the Sumar platform.
His involvement with both Podemos and Sumar associated him closely with the feminist values of those movements.
Sumar reported that Mr Errejón had admitted to “chauvinistic behaviour”. The leader of the political platform and deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz said: “This week, Sumar has begun a process of gathering information on the testimonies which have emerged on social media about Íñigo Errejón.”
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Questions are now being asked regarding how much Mr Errejon’s political allies knew about his behaviour.
Pablo Iglesias, the former leader of Podemos who was a close friend of Mr Errejón until their highly publicised split, said that “this was being talked about a year ago” and that “there were a lot of victims who didn’t have a safe space in which to complain”.
While the police and Sumar investigate, the political fallout has been significant. This is seen as a major blow to Sumar and also the government of Pedro Sánchez, which is already facing a major corruption investigation in connection with a former minister.
The conservative congresswoman, Isabel Borrego, described Mr Errejón’s resignation as “a symptom of the hypocritical feminism of the left” and called on Sumar to explain whether there had been a cover-up.
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