Calls to axe retired King's tribute street name in Pego
PEGO'S branch of Valencian nationalist party Compromís has called for Avenida Juan Carlos I to be renamed, stripping the retired king of Spain of his tribute in the northern Marina Alta town.
The opposition group says a person having a street named after them should be a homage to their 'contribution to the community', and that it is 'inappropriate' to do so for someone who 'has used their social or political status for their own private interests at the cost of society'.
Rex Emeritus Juan Carlos I, who abdicated in favour of his son, now King Felipe VI, in June 2014, has recently become the subject of an anticorruption prosecution inquiry into a 'donation' of US$65 million to the German ex-Countess Corinna zu SaynWittgenstein
– who now goes by her maiden name of Corinna Larsen after divorcing the Count who gave her the title – which is thought to have come out of a US$100m pot in a foundation in the former monarch's name in Panamá.
This US$100m is believed, in turn, to have come from the Arabian King Abdul Aziz alSaud, via his accountants in Switzerland – alleged to be 'yesmen' working for Juan Carlos I.
The prosecution says it has reason to believe the funds may relate to possible illegal commissions for giving the contract to build the AVE highspeed rail link to the Islamic pilgrims' city of Mecca to a joint-venture group of Spanish companies, back in 2011.
As for two-thirds of it being transferred to Corinna Larsen's account the following year, the former aristocrat's solicitor claimed it was an 'unrequested gift' to her and her son as Juan Carlos I had 'great affection for the two of them'.
Scandal and speculation cancels out history
Media rumours at the time hinted strongly at the retired King's 'friendship' with Corinna as having more to it – especially as the reports coincided with two paternity suits which the Supreme Court has, as yet, refused to investigate, and the publication of his wife Queen Sofía's autobiography, which claimed her husband had had affairs with over 1,500 women and that they lived separate lives in different wings of the palace, communicating only via their secretaries.
These scandals, along with photographs of Juan Carlos I hunting elephants in Botswana,
caused such an antimonarchy sensation in Spain that the then-king, now 82, decided it was time to put new faces at the front of the Royal household and handed over the crown to his son, then Prince Felipe of Asturias.
Felipe VI announced in March this year that he had renounced his father's future inheritance out of a sense of public responsibility, 'just in case' the corruption inquiry proved Juan Carlos' guilt.
Juan Carlos I's lack of popularity is only a recent phenomenon, however. Anyone aged under 45 now would not have been born at the time when he was credited with saving Spain from dictatorship.
He was nominated by General Franco as his successor, but as soon as the fascist leader was in his coffin, the brand-new King started the transition to democracy, survived a coup d'état and helped to create the Constitution – still in force since December 1978 – with the help of the country's first democratic president, the late Adolfo Suárez.