The president of the Lugo Provincial Council, the socialist José Tomé, has succumbed to the complaint for alleged sexual harassment presented on the internal channel of his party just five hours after ensuring that he had no intention of resigning. Tomé, who was announced on Tuesday night, resigns from his position in the provincial body and from the leadership of the PSdeG of Lugo “so as not to harm” the party and facilitate its defense, he claims.
The socialist baron of Lugo began the day this Wednesday with forced normality, inaugurating a municipal bus as mayor of Monforte, a position that he has already warned that he does not plan to leave. The veteran politician assured even then that “there is no proof nor can there be any” that throughout his career he has maintained “disgusting behavior” with women. They even point him out for offering jobs in exchange for sex from the public positions he holds. Tomé maintains that it is a “montage” and that he will go to court to “restore” his “honor.”
After announcing his resignation, the PSOE has initiated the procedure to provisionally suspend him from militancy and has demanded that Tomé, in addition to his resignation as president of the Provincial Council, also hand over his record as provincial deputy and leave the mayor’s office of Monforte de Lemos. The Organization Secretariat of the PSOE agrees to the request of the Socialist Party of Galicia (PSdeG) to appoint a manager in the province of Lugo.
The anonymous testimonies disclosed by Code 10 in Cuatro they point to non-consensual touching and claim that Tomé has sent obscene messages and photos to the complainants. The program talks about six victims, although the federal leadership of the PSOE reports a single complaint on the party’s anti-harassment channel. “Let them be taught. I am a normal and ordinary person. I can send you a joke, a message, but that is to harass…”, challenges the socialist, in statements to EL PAÍS. The president of the Lugo Provincial Council considers himself the victim of a “montage.” “I don’t know what it means, one day we will know,” he adds.
Tomé, one of the visible faces of the PSdeG led by José Ramón Gómez Besteiro and a member of the federal committee, denies having received any information about complaints from women in the party in relation to his behavior towards them. The complainants, according to Code 10maintain that they conveyed their complaints verbally to Besteiro, to the Secretary of Organization of the PSdeG, Lara Méndez, and to the person responsible for these same functions in Lugo, Pilar García. The Galician leadership of the formation flatly denies this. Méndez, in a press conference in the Galician Parliament, stated that the PSdeG, “in the face of any act of violence or sexual harassment, as this case may be,” feels “sadness and also repugnance.” The socialist mayor of A Coruña, Inés Rey, has asked for “maximum speed, firmness and forcefulness” in the investigation of the complaint that has reached Ferraz and has expressed her “total support” for the victims: “Machismo and the patriarchal system are still present in our society and political parties are no strangers.”
Tomé appeared at the PSOE headquarters in Monforte just a few hours after expressing his zero intention to resign. In addition to leaving the presidency of the Provincial Council, he has announced that he will request the precautionary suspension of militancy while the file of the internal complaint for alleged sexual harassment is resolved. This step will mean his abandonment of the general secretary in the province and the constitution of a manager. All these resignations, he defends, are “voluntary.” What he does not plan to lose is his seat in the Provincial Council and will continue as a non-attached deputy. He will also maintain the mayorship of Monforte because he has agreed with his government councilors that everyone will join the non-affiliated group. Ferraz, however, demands that he also retire from these two positions.
In his second appearance of the day before the press, Tomé has not hidden his irritation. After announcing her resignation, she has refused to comment on the “revulsion” that the PSdeG Secretary of Organization has said she feels at the accusations made by the complainants. He has also compared his situation to that of “past times”, when “they denounced you and took you to I don’t know where.” Regarding the messages that the complainants say they have, he has insisted that they may be “jokes” or “jokes.” “You never send any WhatsApp“No joke?” Tomé snapped at a journalist. He has denied that these messages reveal harassment or inappropriate behavior with women. “I’m going to report with complete peace of mind because I didn’t do anything,” Tomé maintains. “It’s very clear to me that I didn’t do anything.”
Suspicions that he would end up resigning despite his initial resistance were raised at midday, when the BNG, a party that governs in coalition with the PSOE in the Lugo Provincial Council, demanded his resignation and warned that it would leave the coalition if it did not happen. “The president of the Lugo Provincial Council either resigns or has to be removed from his positions, because it is evident that after such serious accusations he cannot remain there for another minute,” stated its leader, Ana Pontón. The nationalist remembers that her position is the same as the one she maintained when it was revealed that the counselor de Mar, the popular Alfonso Villares, was being investigated for sexual assault. In that case, both the BNG and the PSOE criticized the fact that the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, kept Villares in office for months, despite the complaint filed in court. He counselor He resigned only when he was prosecuted by the Superior Court of Xustiza of Galicia.
