Convergència rehabilitates Prenafeta in Barcelona, man condemned for corruption
Hundreds of former Catalan politicians attended a tribute to deceased Lluís Prenafeta, right-hand man to Jordi Pujol, who was convicted of bribery and environmental crimes. The event reflects attempts by the Convergència elite to cleanse controversial figures from Pujolism.
The tribute to a contested biography
On Monday, a recognition event was held in Barcelona for Lluís Prenafeta, who was secretary of the presidency of the Generalitat and direct collaborator of Jordi Pujol. According to El Confidencial, the event was attended by some 200 people from the Convergència elite—former presidents Jordi Pujol and Artur Mas, former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias, and other leaders of the political party—who applauded Prenafeta's career under the slogan of "person of integrity", a definition employed by the moderator, journalist Jofre Llombart.
The description contrasts with the judicial record. Prenafeta was convicted for his role in the Pretoria case, as well as for his involvement in corruption schemes that included the payment of commissions to Russian intermediaries to manage gas and petroleum concessions. Prenafeta's biographer, Vicent Sanchis, acknowledged during the event that Prenafeta had admitted to using bribes to obtain international contracts. "He told me that to secure that Russian gas and oil concession he had to grease the palm of even the person who cleaned the toilets at the Kremlin," Sanchis said, amid restrained laughter from the audience.
A political justification for time in prison
Vicenç Villatoro, former director of Avui and former president of the Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió, interpreted Prenafeta's conviction as political repression. He presented it as the price of having acted in politics, contrasting inactivity with twenty years without punishment against the risk of imprisonment for "doing something" in the same period. Artur Mas supported this reading by characterising the sentence as a "Prosecutor's setup" that had spoken "what someone wanted to hear even though it was not true".
José Antich, director of ElNacional.cat, recalled another episode from Prenafeta's history: the payment of five million pesetas to Juan Guerra through an advertising agency called JFK. Villatoro added a characterisation of the figure as a reader of Machiavelli "because he was practical, he got things done", emphasising without beating around the bush that Prenafeta's conduct obeyed pragmatic principles, not ideological ones.
Silences on Tipel and other complicity
The event skirted uncomfortable topics. There was no mention of the history of the textile company Tipel, in which the Prenafeta family held a stake and which was at one point directed by Artur Mas, which was accused of environmental crime for systematic pollution of the rivers Congost, Tenés and Besós and which went bankrupt following these accusations. The company had acquired the firm of the father and brother of Marta Ferrusola, wife of Jordi Pujol.
Nor did it receive attention the protection that Prenafeta afforded journalist Alfons Quintà, who ended up killing his wife and taking his own life with a hunting rifle. Sanchis merely mentioned that he had met with Prenafeta so that Quintà would be removed from the directorship of El Observador, a fact that took three months to come about. For years, Quintà's "excesses" at TV3 and at the Catalan newspaper would not have been possible without Prenafeta's cover, who promoted him from positions of power in the public administration.
The pattern of rehabilitation of Pujolism
The event is part of a broader pattern: the Convergència elite seeks to reposition figures marked by corruption or questionable conduct. Jordi Pujol has already undergone this process of social rehabilitation in Convergència circles. Other former members of Pujolism—such as lawyer Joan Piqué Vidal or judge Pasqual Estevill, both deceased and both imprisoned—could receive similar tributes, according to analysis by El Confidencial.
Among those attending were the children of Pujol (Oriol, Pere and Josep), the former adviser to Mas and architect of the procés David Madí, the Junts candidate for mayor Jordi Martí Galbis, the former Interior Minister Quim Forn, and Carles Puigdemont's lawyer Jordi Cabré. The event sealed a message: within the Convergència network, integrity is defined by political loyalty, not by the judicial record.
Source: El Confidencial