The Central Electoral Board (JEC) will begin today the formal procedures for the replacement of Alberto Rodríguez in Congress as deputy for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, but the political formation to which the seat corresponds, United We Can, still does not know who will finally occupy it. The legal mess around the interpretation of that sentence and its practical execution by the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, is now transferred to the replacement operation itself since the person who is to occupy the seat, Fátima González Bello, from Izquierda Unida and number two on the list in the western province of the Islands in the last general elections, has not yet confirmed its availability for replacement. Rodriguez has been cordered by the Supreme Court a month and a half in jail, which he replaced with a fine of 540 euros, and a special disqualification from passive suffrage for kicking a policeman during riots in La Laguna in December 2014.
The coordinator of United Left in the Canary Islands, Ramón Trujillo, acknowledged yesterday that González had doubts “for personal reasons” and for his current “disengagement from political activity” about whether or not to accept the seat. In any case, it will not give a definitive answer until the doubts and legal procedures surrounding Rodríguez’s disqualification are completely cleared up. These procedures will be completed today once the JEC – to which Batet has already sent the writing of execution of sentence and the loss of Rodríguez of his status as a deputy – addresses González Bello today to find out if he is willing to occupy the seat now vacant. If the IU militant resigns, the electoral law monitoring body will then ask the number three on the same electoral list, Patricia Mesa, and so on until someone from that panel accepts.
The second on the list for Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 10-N doubts whether it should take the seat
The confusion in the purple rows about the person who will sit in the seat that Rodríguez held until now has to do, in part, with the fact that some sectors of United We can initially raise the possibility of not occupy that seat in the lower house as a gesture of support for the disqualified deputy and in protest at the “legal outrage” of which they consider that he has been a victim in a double dimension: by the sentence itself and by Batet’s decision to withdraw the record without the sentence itself explicitly contemplating it. This possibility of an empty seat, which was raised above all from Podemos Canarias, was ruled out from the outset by the state leadership of the formation and by its parliamentary officials. “That would be feasible if the government coalition added a parliamentary majority close to the absolute majority, but this is not the case and we know that laws will be passed by a very narrow margin of votes, perhaps by one vote on some occasions,” they point out. purple group fonts.
From Izquierda Unida en las Islas they are aware, however, of the importance that Fatima González would have to accept to collect the minutes. He would become the first person in the entire history of the organization to hold a seat in Congress. “We would have liked to get the position in the elections and it wasn’t for this injustice that Alberto Rodríguez is suffering, which we reject, but obviously it would be very important for us to be in Congress and work within the United We Can group to improve the people’s lives from a Canarian left-wing point of view, ”says Trujillo. However, it leaves the final decision in the hands of the affected person.
However, Alberto Rodríguez himself yesterday took a new step in his judicial battle against disqualification, led by the lawyers he has just hired, Isabel Elbal and Gonzalo Boye, known for being the defenders of Carles Puigdemont, presenting before the Supreme Court a incident of execution of sentence requesting the temporary suspension of the sentence. It further requests that, if this measure is not accepted, that would paralyze the disqualification process, the President of Congress is urged and warned to proceed with its execution in the terms in which it is established in the sentence itself, that is, “without being able to make any modification of the sentence imposed.”
This is an attempt to get the sentencing court to clarify whether the ruling entails the loss of his status as a deputy and the withdrawal of the act, as interpreted by Batet after receiving on Friday the office of the president of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, Manuel Marchena, in which it was stated that the disqualification was “compulsory” but without specifying that it would entail the loss of the seat for the convicted person. This interpretation by Batet was endorsed yesterday by a new report by the Secretary General of Congress, Carlos Gutiérrez, who considered the “supervening disqualification” applicable in this case, in application of article 6 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg) .
These last steps on both sides have done nothing but maintain high political tension between the two partners of the Government, as well as between these and the opposition groups PP, Vox and Cs. Podemos insists on the resignation of Batet for having gone beyond what they consider the sentence on the disqualification of Rodríguez says, but that they avoid supporting their electoral partners from IU and En Común; While Vox asks for the disapproval of the Minister of Social Affairs and top leader of United We Can, Ione Belarra, for accusing the Supreme Court of prevarication. PP and Cs, for their part, ask the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to dismiss Belarra as minister for the same reason.
