The PSOE tries unsuccessfully to postpone the debate by requesting a legal report that clarifies what type of majority is necessary to stop legislative initiatives in process
The regional deputies of the PP and their allies expelled from Ciudadanos and Vox managed on Wednesday to carry out the reform of the Regulations of the Regional Assembly that will allow them to request “at any time” the paralysis of an ongoing legislative process. The objective of the measure is to ask the Congress of Deputies to return the draft reform of the Statute of Autonomy to prevent the amendments of the PSOE, Ciudadanos, Unidas Podemos and Más País aimed, fundamentally, at limiting the mandates of the regional president, putting brake on transfuguismo and guarantee that the leadership of the parliamentary groups remains in the hands of the parties in case of internal conflicts, as has happened this legislature with Ciudadanos and Vox.
The reform of the Regulation to introduce a new article, 225, was approved with 23 votes of the PP parliamentarians and those expelled from Cs and Vox. 16 of the PSOE spoke out (at the time of voting Manuel Sevilla was out of the hemicycle) and the two of Ciudadanos. Pascual Salvador, from Vox, abstained and the two representatives of Podemos left the room to not participate.
At the beginning of the session, the Socialist Group unsuccessfully requested the withdrawal of the single point of debate and voting due to the legal doubts raised. In an initiative registered hours before, Diego Conesa raised doubts about the type of majority necessary to adopt by the Plenary the agreement to withdraw the legislative initiative. He recalled that the Statute includes in its article 55 the need for a qualified majority of three fifths for its own reform. So he demanded that in application of the legal principle of ‘contrarius actus’ the same majority be required to request Congress to stop the process of reforming the Statute. The popular and their partners would not reach it at this time. But they did have enough votes to stop the PSOE’s claims, including the request for a written legal report that would have stopped the maneuver.
Diego Conesa, in his last intervention as socialist spokesman before making his resignation official as a deputy, stressed that “time and forms are important” in political life, and with this express reform they are throwing away twelve years of work and negotiation politics in the Region of Murcia. He recalled that the new Statute was a purpose of deputies from various legislatures and asked not to belittle this work with the attitudes of “immature people.” In addition, he accused the popular and their allies of breaking the consensus and using “tricks” to circumvent the amendment process, which is perfectly included in the parliamentary processing of legislative initiatives.
The socialist spokesman asked the deputies who support the Executive of Fernando López Miras if they are concerned that the new Statute includes the figure of non-attached parliamentarians and was convinced that the deputies of the previous legislature, those who approved the text that now reviewed in the Cortes Generales, they would accept the amendments. Conesa also accused the PP, the defectors of Ciudadanos and those expelled from Vox of using arguments typical of “Catalan independentists” to reject said amendments.
Castillo’s vote
In an attempt to stop the operation of those who support the regional government, Conesa appealed to the neutrality of the president of the Chamber, Alberto Castillo, to stop the modification of the Regulation. Refrain, Mr. Castillo. Have honor and honor the position you represent and what it means. But the president did not do it, despite the fact that his vote was not decisive due to the absence of three deputies at the time of raising his hands. In a last message, Conesa asked López Miras not to break the political consensus reached in previous legislatures.
For the Mixed Group, the deputy of Podemos María Marín highlighted the need for a legal report for a modification “at least controversial” and described what was happening in the session as a “botched”. He denounced that the Regulations cannot be changed according to the needs of the Government and, citing Montesquieu, denounced the transformation of the Assembly into a “banana democracy” led by a “tyrant” as “if it were his farmhouse.”
Likewise, the Citizens’ deputy Juan José Molina denounced the “democracy a la carte” that is applied in the Region of Murcia and predicted that the regulatory change will end in the courts due to legal doubts. He shared Conesa’s arguments on the need for a qualified majority to address everything related to the Statute.
Juan José Liarte, spokesperson for the Vox Group, recalled that the debate was ordered after hearing the legal report ‘in voce’ from the lawyer assisting the Board of Spokespersons and asked the rest of the groups not to try to discredit those expelled from Cs and Vox since they were expelled, he said, for putting law enforcement before party interests. He also denounced that a socialist deputy, Alfonso Martínez Baños, had already announced that they would settle political scores in Madrid because the motion of censure of the PSOE and Ciudadanos against López Miras had not succeeded. Apart from this, Liarte defended the need to articulate a mechanism so that the Assembly can defend the sovereignty of the regional people as it affects their own laws.
In relation to what was argued by Liarte, the spokesman for the Citizens Group, Francisco Álvarez, accused the “left-wing alliance” of breaking the consensus reached in the Assembly last legislature and of betraying the will of Murcia with “sectarian and Revanchists. He assured that the text that now four political groups want to model in the Congress of Deputies would never have left the Assembly and was in favor of rescuing the Statute to discuss it again in its place of origin.
Meanwhile, the popular spokesman, Joaquín Segado, asked not to lose sight of the fact that what was discussed in the session was the reform of the Regulation, ignoring the true objectives pursued with it. However, he exposed them when he accused the Socialists of relying on the Catalan independence and Basque sovereignty deputies to change the text of the Statute: “They have introduced amendments to organize the government in the Region with the votes of ERC and Bildu.” He also rejected the accusations of breaking the consensus, because only the PP has fully respected that text without introducing amendments to what its deputies voted in the last legislature. Finally he asked his political opponents to withdraw their 53 amendments with the commitment of the PP not to take advantage of the regulatory change to claim the Statute.
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