Salvador Illa asked Montse Mínguez to continue as spokesperson for the PSOE and candidate in the general elections of 29-N: "It has been a hunt and politics has limits"

The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has come out in defense of the former PSOE spokesperson Montse Mínguez, who last Friday announced the resignation of all her positions after the controversy caused by the discovery that her partner, Sergi Vélez Viola, has a large portfolio of rental homes.

The head of the Catalan Government has described the pressure on his party colleague in the previous days as "hunting" and has revealed that he asked her not to abandon her responsibilities. In fact, Mínguez was going to be the head of the PSC list in the Lleida constituency for the general elections and on Wednesday she had already been confirmed in that position by the provincial federation.

"I asked him to continue and he broke down, he told me that he couldn't stand it, that he wasn't in politics for that, and he told me very excited, almost without being able to speak," she explained in an interview on El matí de Catalunya Ràdio. "I saw a broken person," he added about the conversation they had that same day, in which the national council of the PSC ratified the candidacies for the November 29 election. A description of his emotional state that was the same as that made by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on Friday.

Finally, Mínguez was replaced at number one on the Lleida list by Cristina Morón, third deputy mayor of the Lleida City Council.

The president has pointed out that the case of the former socialist spokesperson "has already been seen before" and is "an attempt to hunt down a person saying things that are not true." The first secretary of the PSC has referred to the alleged favorable treatment of his partner's companies during Mínguez's time in the municipal government of Lleida as false information. "Not everything goes, politics has limits," Illa said into the microphones of the Catalan public radio station.

The head of the Government has also spoken, specifically, about the economic activity of Sergi Vélez: "As long as he has apartments and they are rented in accordance with the law that applies in Catalonia, and not in other parts, with price limits in stressed market areas, that is what we want."

The president of the Generalitat has pointed out that Mínguez "has defended the housing policies" of the party regardless of his partner's real estate businesses. "I'm not aware that he did anything illegal, she must resolve this, but she did her job."