Political corruption

I don´t want to comment or to judge here, just to give testimony of a situation that I find noteworthy and troubling.
For quite a while now, the news on Catalan and Spanish television have been dominated by corruption scandals in various parts of the country. The party that comes off worst is the ultra-conservative Popular Party (PP). It all began with a spying scandal within the ranks of the PP in Madrid. Then came "el caso Gürtel" (Gürtel=German "belt"=Spanish "correa") around the corrupt relationships between a public relations firm (Orange Market) headed by a man named Correa and the Popular Party in Madrid and Valencia. Correa was a guest at the wedding of former Prime Minister Aznar's daughter to Alejandro Agag, another one involved in the scandal, at the El Escorial royal palace. In Valencia, the state governor was accused of taking suits in return for giving PR events to Orange Market, there headed by a name nick-named "Bigotes" for his spectacular moustache, but the case was ended inconclusively. In Mallorca, the former PP government is accused of financing the party by over-charging for a bicycle arena (PalmArena). And the latest case coming to light was around the Socialist mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramanet, a Barcelona suburb, who worked with a building firm and some intermediaries in money laundering and reclassification of land. This is the most notorious case of political corruption in Spain and it normally works like this: the municipality sells land not specified for building that it owns to a building firm on the cheap; a short time later the council decides to reclassify it, which increases its worth manifold, and the builder builds houses, shopping centers or whatever there. The builder makes a handsome profit and the municipality gets a nice tax revenue for the building, but nothing for the increased value of the land that originally was not for building. And the mayor and the others implied get a nice unofficial and tax-free bonus by the builder... These mentioned were only the most spectacular cases but it is like a national scourge. Part of the fault lies with the poor financing for communities who depend very much on building taxes. By selling the land in their property, they find a short-term remedy for their financial problems but sell the only "family silver" they have; and in the past they helped to create the real-estate bubble that burst about two years ago.