Grand Master of Spanish Masons Eludes Resignation

Grand Master of Spanish Masons Eludes Resignation 

in a Tumultuous Extraordinary Assembly

January 20, 2009

The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain (GLE), Jose Carretero, this past Saturday eluded the resignation that was requested of him by a group of Masons in the extraordinary assembly that he had summoned to revoke the agreements of the previous assembly. In this [previous] conclave, the Masons had rejected several real estate transactions that he had carried out without the necessary permission, with money that belonged to the charity fund of the organization.

The assembly Saturday was anything but placid. There were in attendance little more than 150 Masons with the right to vote, but the immense majority were English Masons who, for various reasons, were affiliated with the Spanish lodge. Carretero had a difficult confrontation with the former Provincial Grand Master of Madrid, Manuel Moreno, who requested his resignation because the charity fund must be dedicated to help Masons with problems and not to conduct real estate operations. In particular, Carretero had bought, in the autumn of 2007, premises in Palencia and an apartment building, parking and a storage facility in Bilbao. On his accounts being rejected, he found that it was legally impossible for him to have the documents for the acquired properties notarized, which was why he wanted to have the vote of the 2008 assembly revoked so he would have power to regularize the situation. The buildings are still in the name of the old owners, in spite of their being paid, so they could still obstruct their sale, for example.

During the confrontation, the Grand Master asked his opponent to leave the room, but several of those in attendance began to protest, and in the end he allowed him to remain. Moreno, nevertheless, threatened him with a criminal complaint for having purchased the buildings without permission.

Carretero also allowed each one of those present to have up to six delegated absentee votes and there were presented in his favor around 250 votes of absent Masons. "For 25 years, the maximum number of delegated votes that could be taken were three per person, but with that delegation he would never have won the vote. In addition, it was impossible for us to know if all those votes were legal or not. In particular, one of those present said that his delegated vote was taken by Carretero and he had not signed it. In this way, there could be fraudulent voting. Or it could be that other votes had similar irregularities," said one of the attendees to El Confidencial.

In the final voting, nevertheless, almost all the points proposed by Carretero to regularize the purchases were passed. One of the only points that was rejected proposed to give power to the Grand Master to sell the storage room, garage, house and premises acquired the 15 of November 2007 in Bilbao. But his main concern, to obtain permission to have the documents notarized for the buildings that he bought a little more than a year ago, has been resolved for the moment. Now he will be called on to calm the waters within the GLE, where Spanish Masons see with distrust that the votes are always won by the participation of English Masons.

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