A legislative reform under discussion in the Congress of Deputies wants to annul the right to vote of Spaniards and Catalans living abroad
As reported on the day 3 of April the newspaper The country, the two main political parties represented in the Congress of Deputies (PSOE i PP) prepare a modification of the LOREG (Organic Law on the General Electoral Regime) with the aim of depriving Spaniards living abroad of the right to vote in local elections, autonomous regions and in the elections to the Congress of Deputies. According to this newspaper, it would seem that the national leaders of the two major parties are in agreement on a legislative change that would involve the elimination of the right to vote for Spaniards living abroad in municipal and regional elections and the creation of a constituency exclusive election for emigration in the Senate (between four and five senators to choose) and would also eliminate the right to vote in the Congress of Deputies.
The main reasons for wanting to make this reform point to the need to find more guarantees of transparency after the accusations and suspicions about duplicity of census takers, non-exclusion of transferred persons or doubts about the transport of votes that have appeared in Galicia in the last electoral contests, so many generals, such as autonomous and municipal. A real problem without a doubt, but that the solution must be found not with the application of "café para todos" but with specific regulations for voting in this community. It is as if, faced with the difficulties faced by the State and the autonomous regions in applying the Dependency Law, they chose to suppress the right instead of finding the practical formulas to make it possible.
In parallel, the authors of the reform question the fact that residents abroad are part of Catalan or Spanish society. According to this picturesque statement people like Antoni Bassas (TV3 correspondent resident in Washington), Pau Gasol (basketball player living in Los Angeles) or Cesc Fabregas (soccer player resident in London) they are not part of either Catalan or Spanish society (we do not understand how in the case of the last two they are invited to play in the Spanish and Catalan national teams of their sports). The thing is even more picturesque when it turns out that Infanta Cristina de Borbón and Mr. Iñaki Urdangarin (residents a Washington) they will also be deprived of their right to vote given that, according to the authors of the reform, they are not part of Spanish society.
From the FIEC we deeply regret the instrumentalization of this decision that is being made by sectors of the Spanish and Catalan extreme right to confront the suppression of the right to vote for residents abroad with the possible granting of the right to vote in the elections municipal to foreigners resident in Spain. The authors of the reform, who are the only ones guilty of this demagoguery, they should have thought of it before.
It is clear enough that if the Parliament of Catalonia had approved, when it played, an electoral law of its own for Catalonia, very likely this regrettable interference in the sovereignty of our Parliament would never have happened and the right to vote for Catalan residents abroad (which no Catalan party has ever questioned) would not be in discussion. Still it will be, in all cases, the state law that determines whether or not residents abroad can vote in the elections to the Congress of Deputies, municipal, European elections or referendums given that these electoral processes are the competence of the State.
The deadlines for the implementation of the new system are still uncertain, given that the conclusions of the Subcommittee should be sent to the Constitutional Commission of Congress to then prepare a bill that Congress and the Senate should vote on. And, as it seems and given the protests that the initiative is causing everywhere, the entry into force of the new law finally takes place on 2011 (just before the municipal elections) the vote of 126.398 Catalans registered in 1 of February in the CERA (Electoral Census of Absent Residents), in the November elections of 2010 in the Parliament of Catalonia it would be guaranteed. He would be, But, if a Catalan electoral law favorable to this right is not approved in the next legislature, the last time that Outer Catalonia would vote in the Parliament of Catalonia. In the rest of the elections, not to change things, Catalans living abroad would no longer vote there.
We attach the text of the carta that the FIEC has addressed to the various heads of the Catalan parliamentary groups in the Congress of Deputies or Senate in Madrid:
- Josep Antoni Duran and Lleida (CiU)
- John Ridao (ERC)
- John Herrera (IC/V)
- Daniel Martinez (PSC-PSOE)
- Alicia Sánchez-Camacho (PP)
A copy of the letter has been sent to all Catalan deputies in all parliaments (Catalan, Spanish and European). In this letter we set out our legal and political reasons and ask for a firm attitude of opposition to this reform proposal. Other actions, about which we will report, they are already underway.
We believe that as Catalan communities abroad we must react and we ask you to express your, from your entity or individually, your support for the democratic right of Catalans living abroad to participate in the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia and in other electoral processes. No one has the right to deprive us of our right to participate in Catalan democratic life and to present our interests as Catalan communities abroad.
We will continue to report on all events on this topic.
The Board of Directors of the International Federation of Catalan Entities (FIEC)
April 2010
Web page: http://www.fiecweb.cat/
Email: fiec@fiecweb.cat
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