guardian.co.uk,
Giles Tremlett in Madrid, Friday 20 April 2012
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| King Juan Carlos on his €10,000-a-day hunting safari in Botswana, which had been hushed up before he fell and broke his hip. Photograph: Target Press/Barcroft Media |
They were
once the star royal family of Europe, seen as hard-working, frugal, modern and
genuinely popular among ordinary Spaniards who adored King Juan Carlos as the
great bringer of democracy.
But now
Spain's royals have revealed an ability to shoot themselves in the foot, both
literally and metaphorically, in a way that has left angry citizens wondering
if they even notice how ordinary people are suffering.
As
unemployment reached 24%, austerity measures bit and the economy headed back
towards double-dip recession, the 74-year-old monarch had publicly claimed he
lay in bed at night worrying about the plight of the young jobless. But a fall
as he walked to the bathroom in an exclusive safari camp in Botswana, where he
had gone to shoot elephants, water buffaloes and other exotic animals, has
revealed a different story.
While
Spaniards desperately sought work or struggled to meet basic needs, the king
was on a hush-hush, all-expenses-paid hunting trip, blasting at animals in one
of the world's most exotic landscapes – Botswana's Okavango delta.
His
big-game-slaying holiday was estimated to cost €10,000 (£8,000) a day, with a
Syrian businessman close to the Saudi royal family rumoured to be picking up
the tab.
It was not
the kind of thing Spaniards wanted to hear as the government announced health
and education cuts and fears grew of a bailout accompanied by years of harsh
austerity.
"We
all have to tighten our belts a bit because of the difficult times for the
economy," the king had told them over the summer, as he backed austerity.
The hunting
trip was just the latest in a series of gaffes which have seen Spain's normally
respectful press tear up a decades-old deal not to scrutinise the royal family.
That
agreement had stayed in place since Juan Carlos inherited General Francisco
Franco's powers after the dictator's death in 1975 and oversaw the restoration
of monarchy and democracy. His role in quashing a 1981 coup attempt appeared to
cement his position.
In recent
months, however, the king has struggled to separate the monarchy from a
corruption scandal surrounding his son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarín, Duke of Palma.
The duke, a
former Olympic medal winner with Spain's handball team, denies allegations that
he used charities as fronts for taking millions of euros in public money, some
of it hidden from tax authorities, so that he could cash in on his royal title
by appearing at events alongside politicians.
"Everyone,
especially those of us with public functions, must behave correctly, in an
exemplary fashion," the king solemnly declared in his Christmas broadcast
as the scandal snowballed and the monarchy's popularity tumbled in opinion
polls.
He hired a
new public relations chief, former El País columnist Javier Ayuso, with glowing
pro-monarchy editorials appearing in the centre-left daily and other
newspapers. The royal palace's accounts were also made public in what Spaniards
were told was a new era of transparency.
But Juan
Carlos's attempts at portraying his family as hard-working, humble and
law-abiding had taken a blow when his 13-year-old grandson, Froilán Marichalar,
shot himself through the foot with a 36-calibre shotgun just a few days before
the Botswana incident.
Newspapers
reported that Froilán was too young to use the shotgun legally, raising further
questions about whether the royals felt normal rules did not apply to them.
"These
people just don't understand the reality of this country," complained Mercedes
Munarriz, a sound engineer. "They even seem to be running a perfect
campaign against themselves."
But it was
the king's Botswana fall, which required him to fly back for a hip operation in
Madrid, that provoked an unprecedented torrent of criticism of a monarch unused
to harsh words from the press or mainstream politicians.
"The
king should choose between responsibility and abdication," said Tomás
Gómez, head of Madrid's Socialist party, as pressure grew for Juan Carlos to
make way for his son, Felipe.
"The
African elephant scandal is not anecdotal," said Ignacio Escolar, one of
Spain's most popular bloggers. "It cannot be so when the Spanish monarchy
has spent months going from scandal to scandal, when the economic crisis makes
Spaniards question all their institutions and when even his own family cannot
escape the stain of corruption."
Even the
king's private life, where rumours of lovers have always been rife, is no
longer out of bounds – and neither is his friendship with a German aristocrat
whose name is widely available in Spain and Germany, but whose lawyers say she
denies any inappropriate relationship and have threatened legal action against
any British newspapers that reveal her name.
"The
failure of his marriage to Queen Sofia, from whom he is practically separated,
is public knowledge," said José Antonio Zarzalejos, a former editor of the
conservative ABC newspaper, in his online column.
Officials
at the king's Zarzuela palace declined to say who had travelled with him or
paid for a trip that they described as private, nor would they comment on his
personal life.
A more
ferocious debate was taking place on social networks and the internet. The
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said it had received more than 80,000 internet
complaints against the king – its honorary president in Spain – for shooting
elephants for fun.
"The
impact is huge in Britain, Germany, Holland, the United States and other
countries," said WWF Spain's boss, Juan Carlos del Olmo, explaining why it
was considering sacking the king. "It is more of an image problem, both
national and international, than a conservation question."
Palace
officials said they had not been formally told of any plans by the WWF to break
with the monarch.
Foreign Policy magazine blogger Joshua E Keating added to Spain's sense of humiliation
by asking whether the king had deliberately sought the least politically
correct holiday. "Was the baby-seal-clubbing junket all booked up?"
he wondered.
The Spanish
government has also received a deluge of requests that taxpayer funds given to
the king should not be excluded from a new transparency law. All this pales,
however, beside the latest allegations made by defence lawyers representing a
business partner of the king's son-in-law.
This week
they provided copies of emails which allegedly showed that Juan Carlos acted as
an intermediary between Urdangarín and public officials, trying to persuade
politicians to get involved with the creation of a new America's Cup sailing
project. Urdangarín had allegedly hoped to earn money from it.
There was
no suggestion the king had done anything illegal, though his status excludes
him from the legal process anyway. Officials said the emails reflected his
support for sailing, one of his family's favourite sports. The news magazine
Interviú this week claimed anticorruption investigators are trying to find up
to €5m allegedly kept in tax havens by Urdangarín – whose appearances in court
have proved an embarrassment. On Wednesday the king appeared on his crutches to
issue an 11-word apology for his behaviour. "I am very sorry. I made a
mistake and it will not happen again," he said.
"I
applaud the apology, but am left with a question. Exactly what is it that won't
happen again?" asked Escolar.
Even ministers
find themselves getting tangled up in the lexicon of royal gaffes, as the
expression "shoot yourself in the foot" gains new significance in
Madrid. The foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, had to apologise for
using it as a way of describing Argentina's nationalisation of the
Spanish-owned oil company YPF this week. "It was an unfortunate
expression," he said. "I meant no double-meaning."
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