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Ebay prankster flogs off Spanish parliament for €1

George Mills
George Mills - [email protected]
Ebay prankster flogs off Spanish parliament for €1
Anybody want to buy a government? Spain's Valencia Parliament was recently put up for sale in a joke ebay ad. Photo: Jaume Meneses

Bargain hunters visiting the Spanish portal of auction site ebay on Monday were startled to find that one of Spain's regional governments was up for sale at a rock-bottom price.

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Anyone searching online for mementos from Spain's Valencia region recently would have found souvenir ashtrays, rare stamps and fraying photo books.

But they might also have stumbled on an advertisement  for a rather more unusual item: the autonomous region's embattled parliament. 

"For sale, the Valencian Government for €1 ($1.35). In good condition. Urgent," read the satirical posting posted on ebay. 

The original advertisement on the Spanish ebay site was taken down on Wednesday.

The author of the cutting attack on the region's government told interested buyers their purchase would include — as "gifts" — the failed regional saving bank CAM and the soon-to-be closed government television station RTVV.

Recently, a Spanish judge ordered the arrest of five former CAM bankers in an investigation into possible embezzlement at the institution.

In another blow to the coastal region, Valencia's President announced on November 5th it was pulling the plug on the government's television and radio network. 

"Now we are going to see the last little piece of self-government left to the Valencians," the ebay ad read.

"We may as well go out with a bang."

The joke ad was withdrawal by ebay on Monday but not before bids for the political institution reached €3,000.

Valencia is Spain's most heavily indebted region, with debt at 29.4 percent of gross domestic product. In September that debt was €29.24 billion.

Former regional president Francisco Camps resigned in 2011 after he was implicated in a long-running corruption scandal known as the Gürtel Case.

The region has also come to symbolize the country's wasteful spending during Spain's building-fuelled boom. 

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