Vélez attacks Castillo and the PP accuses the PSOE of wanting to “adulterate” the Chamber

Alberto Castillo «is demonstrating that he is absolutely sold to the established power in the Region of Murcia; it is sold to the owner of the farmhouse». With these statements, the general secretary of the PSRM and delegate of the Government in the Region, José Vélez, yesterday hardened his attacks on the president of the regional Parliament, pointed out by the socialist and Podemos deputies after the suspension of a Board of Spokespersons scheduled for yesterday. In it, for the first time this legislature, the left-wing bloc had the possibility of setting the parliamentary agenda for next week, taking advantage of the disappearance of the Vox Parliamentary Group and the incorporation of its four members into the Joint. The request for postponement was presented by the PP and Citizens invoking the regulations of the Chamber. Subsequently, PSOE and Podemos registered another letter requesting that the call be maintained. This was dismissed, because the first prevailed, and caused great controversy. The Board – now made up of Castillo, the socialists Gloria Alarcón and Antonio José Espín, as well as the popular Miguel Ángel Miralles – adopted both decisions under the regulations and with the advice of the Assembly’s lawyers.

Even so, the anger grew when, also on Monday, the Table appointed Francisco Carrera, from Vox, as interim spokesman for the Mixed Group, replacing María Marín, from Podemos. To do this, it took into account the alphabetical order of the surnames of its eight members, as established in the latest organization and operation regulations of the group. He will be in office until there is a new one, in a period of between fifteen days and a month.

Lucas sees “arbitrariness”

For all these reasons, the spokesman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Francisco Lucas, yesterday called for the “immediate resignation” of Castillo, whom he pointed to as the “executive arm of the chiefdoms of López Miras” and who he said does not guarantee the proper functioning of the parliamentary activity. In addition, he regretted that the Assembly is in the hands of “unethical people who have betrayed their parties and only seek their benefit.” Likewise, he considered “unheard of that Castillo refuses to convene a Board of Spokespersons that was already scheduled because the PP has lost the majority” and that an “embarrassing spectacle” is being given. And he spoke of “arbitrary” decisions to refer to Carrera’s appointment.

The PSOE did not obtain a response from Castillo, who remains silent, but it did from the spokesman for the Popular Group, Joaquín Segado, who said: “Exactly the same rules have been applied as when Mrs. Marín was appointed spokesperson” in September 2021. And he attributed the socialist attacks to which Lucas is upset for “not having been able to take political advantage of the generated situation and intends to confuse and twist reality”.

«What really is an anomaly, as well as an indignity, is trying to take advantage of the latest additions to the Mixed Group, of which the PP is absolutely oblivious, to adulterate parliamentary representation and fabricate a majority contrary to the will expressed in the ballot boxes, which is what the PSOE and Podemos intended,” criticized Mowing. And he accused Marín of wanting to appropriate some votes “to impose a fraudulent majority with the PSOE.”

In defense of Marín, the autonomous coordinator and national deputy of Podemos, Javier Sánchez Serna, came out, who said that the objective of “López Miras’s maneuvers in the Assembly” was to put an end to Podemos and Marín, “the only voice that has confronted them this legislature and that has exposed its shame».

López Miras ignores

However, López Miras disassociated himself from what happened in the Assembly due to the move to the Mixed Group of his Minister of Education: «It is a situation that has not been generated by any deputy from the PP, nor from the Popular Group, but from other parliamentary groups; it is a situation that nobody likes, not me, nor is it desirable».

According to the president, his government will continue to work for Murcia, “trying to guarantee stability.” In addition, he was convinced that the Vox deputies who have gone to the Mixed Group and have helped support his executive – among them the Minister of Education, Mabel Campuzano – will continue to do so until the end of the legislature.

The Regional Assembly of Murcia will save more than 60,000 euros due to the disappearance of the Vox Parliamentary Group seven months after the end of the X Legislature. As established by the Chamber’s regulations, each group receives a monthly allowance (9,875 euros) to meet its ordinary operating expenses. Then there is a variable of 2,395 euros for each deputy, which in the case of the Mixed Group, which has become the third largest in the parliamentary arch after the arrival of the four Vox parliamentarians, will directly manage each party or the deputies, as they agree.

However, the main economic consequence of the dissolution of Vox is that the Assembly will recover nearly 200,000 euros deposited in a bank account, the result of the savings of these allocations since the beginning of the legislature. The economic services of the Chamber have given exporter Juan José Liarte a month to settle the pending payments and return the rest.

Four eventual cease

Another effect is that the four temporary workers who worked as Liarte’s assistants, Francisco Carrera, Pascual Salvador and Mabel Campuzano, have ceased their jobs. Some of them will rejoin when the new Mixed Group is organized, although it remains to be seen if in the same number. Everything will depend on the agreement reached now by the eight deputies and what is established in the new operating regulations.

As detailed by a spokesman for the Assembly, the three assistants who worked for the Mixed Group until now remain in their positions “by decision of the president”: two at the service of Podemos deputies María Marín and Rafael Esteban and one with Ana Martínez Vidal and Juan José Molina, from Ciudadanos.