The president of the Madrid Assembly, Enrique Ossorio, has activated this Friday the investigation that must decide whether Rocío Monasterio is sanctioned for the alleged irregular vote that she had carried out in the plenary session on February 1, when she voted for herself and a deputy. absent on at least one occasion, according to the video of the session. In this way, the former regional vice president will provide a writing detailing what happened at the next meeting of the Board; identifying the author of the facts investigated; specifying “the sanctions that may apply, without prejudice to what results from the instruction”; and proposing the procedure and the competent body that should govern this possible sanction, which, if applicable, would be approved by the Table, where the PP has an absolute majority. The spokesperson for the ultra party risks receiving a fine or being suspended as a deputy for between 15 and 30 days for supposedly having caused her party to gain more votes than deputies present in that session. One thing is certain: the PP sees in this episode an opportunity to make him pay for all the disagreements suffered during the two legislatures in which the Executive depended on their votes for everything.
To take this step, Ossorio takes advantage of the article 35.2 of the regulations, which establishes that sanctioning procedures will be initiated through a written complaint at the request of any Deputy or Parliamentary Group. And in fact, Más Madrid has already registered a request for Monasterio to be sanctioned for a month, a document that for now remains on the table.
“This is an action prior to the start of the procedure, which is carried out to collect the necessary information, including a legal report, and guarantee that the process is developed in accordance with the current regulations of the Madrid Assembly,” specified a spokesperson of the Assembly. “At the next Assembly Table, the president of the Assembly will provide the document with the proposal to initiate the file and a report from the Chamber services on the procedure that would be applicable.”
This is the sequence of events that has placed Monasterio on the brink of becoming the first deputy sanctioned for an irregular vote in the history of the Madrid Assembly.
January 25. José Luis Ruiz Bartolomé, Monasterio's right-hand man in the chamber, leaves his seat to return to private activity. Vox has one week to replace him before the first plenary session of the new session. It is not that it is urgent either: the PP has an absolute majority and its presence will not change anything.
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January 31. One day before the plenary session, Pablo Gutiérrez de Cabiedes resigns from occupying the seat, which corresponds to him because he is next on the electoral list. His decision exacerbates the crisis of a party shaken from controversy to controversy in recent months. And so, Vox arrives at the plenary session the next day without its new deputy, Javier Pérez, having taken office and, therefore, with one less vote and an empty chair.
February 1st. At the end of the plenary session, the president of the Assembly, Enrique Ossorio (PP), takes the floor to give a warning before voting begins. “Before starting to vote, I clarify that a deputy, by mistake, has pressed the presence button in two different seats,” says the former regional vice president, who downplays that action. The controversy, in fact, explodes later, when the technical services of the Chamber detect that a vote has been taken from the seat of Ruiz Bartolomé, who is no longer a deputy and has not been replaced by Vox. That is, someone has voted twice.
February 5th. Ossorio decides to open an investigation and all eyes immediately turn to Monasterio. Because Henríquez de Luna admits in the meeting of spokespersons that he activated two different places as present. He did not want the seat next to Monastery's to be empty, which would be unsightly for the cameras, but he finally returned to his seat. The leader is the one who comes to admit having voted several times, although she does not say it clearly either.
“It's technology stuff,” he laughs during a press conference in which he describes himself pressing and unpressing buttons in a hurry to try to turn off the seat. But no one takes the matter as a joke in Parliament. And much less the PP, which sees an ideal opportunity to settle outstanding accounts with her former partner, or in the left-wing opposition, in which Más Madrid registers a letter requesting that she be suspended as a deputy for 30 days.
This has never happened in the Madrid Assembly, according to a spokesperson for the institution. But there are precedents outside the region. For example, in the Basque Country. There, in 2003, Parliament sanctioned Carlos Iturgaiz with one month without being able to exercise his rights for having activated the electronic presence indicator in the Chamber of his colleague Jaime Mayor Oreja.
February 8th. In the middle of a control session with her Government, Isabel Diaz Ayuso is committed to sanctioning Monasterio for her actions. “If you are going on a road where you have to drive at 80 [kilómetros por hora], and they catch you at 140, Mrs. Monasterio, you will understand that you will have to be fined,” assures the regional president. “What has not been seen in life is that I vote for another deputy who is absent,” she denounces.
Monasterio responds by assuring that the conservative leader seeks to expel her from the Chamber at all costs, and jokes, gesturing, when the end of the session comes, it is time to vote, and he makes grandiloquent movements at every step. This leads to this Friday, when the Assembly Board has decided to launch the process that will predictably end up sanctioning the spokesperson of the far-right party.
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