According to the portal lainformacion.com, as well as to José Miguel Camacho, a member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain, the participation of Manel Navarro in Eurovision 2017 is in question.

Due to the voting scandal in Objetivo Eurovision, which resulted in a tie between Manel Navarro (the jury favorite) and Mirela (the public favorite), and the fact that one of the jury members – Xavi Martinez, was openly supporting Manel even before the contest took place. The website of his radio station Los 40 has also published an article that Manel is the winner of Objetivo Eurovision and will represent Spain in Kiev, an hour before the show has actually started.

After RTVE received complaints from social media users and various commercial TV channels, the political parties are looking into this matter, as well as the Congress of Deputies. The Congress of Deputies sent a letter to RTVE asking the following questions – who approved the system of voting in Objetivo Eurovision; who decided on who will be the members of the jury; who decided which acts are going to be the direct finalists and based on what criteria; did it eve arise that RTVE leave without affection, in view of what happened, the result of the second gala?

Mr. José Miguel Camacho from the Congress of Deputies stated the following:

If these questions are not answered in 20 days time, these will become questions asked by a commission in oral form in the month of March. These issues have to be answered in March, as it is the deadline for the final confirmation of the representative of Spain in Eurovision. It is not understandable that in a competition where acts should participate in equal conditions, a jury member that has made public his preference for one of the candidates is chosen. The rules established in the previous phase of the pre-selection were thus not fulfilled.

Many people are asking me if there are no things more important than Eurovision, but in this case my role in the Congress is to be in the Communication Commission and to ensure that the public media works correctly. People voted and paid money for it, in addition to what is already paid from public funds for the Spanish TV to work, it does not make sense that in the end the result is not good.

Mr. Camacho also stated that it is vital to find out what is the connection between Sony Music Spain, and the Entertainment Director of RTVE, Mrs. Toni Prieto. Rumours are that the daughter of Mrs. Prieto is working at Sony Music Spain, which is the label behind Manel Navarro, and that she is a member of his Eurovision team. This question was asked in a press conference organized after Manel’s victory in Objetivo Eurovision, however Toni Prieto even though she was present at the press conference, an answer was not given. At the same press conference, it was stated that only questions about the winner himself are going to be answered, with the accent on what happened on Sunday was “point by point according to the rules of the competition”.

Through his personal Twitter account, Mr. Javier Maroto from the Congress of Deputies, confirmed that he is also looking into what happened in Objetivo Eurovision, and will be taking actions. Mr. Maroto himself confirmed in the past that he is a Eurovision fan, and he also attended the Song Contest last year in Stockholm.

The deadline for all countries to hand over the songs for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest which will be held in Kiev is in the middle of March. In case RTVE doesn’t answer the questions sent in by the Congress in due time, and the suspicion of the fraud continues, the participation of Manel Navarro in Kiev could be well affected.