The Central Electoral Board has ordered the province of Madrid to open two disciplinary proceedings against the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, PP candidate for re-election, according to resolutions to which EL PAÍS has had access. After the complaints from Más Madrid and PSOE, the body that monitors compliance with electoral regulations reproaches the PP candidate for violating the prohibition to speak about the alleged achievements of his Government during the campaign, which is imposed by article 50 of the LOREG. For the supervisory body, Díaz Ayuso mixed her condition of president with that of PP candidate in an act in the Las Ventas bullring, in another in an Iberia headquarters and during a visit to the works of a bridge that will connect the Valdebebas neighborhood and Terminal 4 of the Barajas airport.
Ayuso: "Sending bullets to Iglesias and attacking Vox resemble the germ, hatred"
The complaint from Más Madrid refers to an act by Díaz Ayuso in the Las Ventas bullring, which he attended on April 8 to inaugurate a mural in memory of the bullfighter Víctor Barrio, the result of an agreement between the Community, the Toro de Lidia Foundation and the José Tomás Foundation.
The institutional nature of the meeting eliminates any doubt that the PP candidate would appear there as president, although the opposite could be deduced from part of her speech.
"The fighting bull farmers are going through a critical moment (...) The pandemic has threatened the survival and viability of many farms, and the Community is not going to allow it," he said, before recalling that the day before his government He had signed an agreement to celebrate 18 bullfighting festivals; that in 2020 it gave "unprecedented aid" to the sector of one million euros; that these grants would be reapplied in 2021; and that he had asked the Government of Spain to reduce VAT (to 4%) for bullfights.
The resolution, signed by Miguel Colmenero Menéndez de Luarca, argues that "said message exceeded the tribute in memory of the deceased bullfighter (which was the original reason for the institutional act) to enter the scope of the electoral campaign." "The Central Electoral Board has recently urged the President to avoid the introduction of electoral messages in her institutional interventions, in order not to incur violations of the prohibition that arises from article 50.2 of the LOREG," he continues. And it agrees: "To again require the President of the Community of Madrid to refrain in the future from disseminating messages of electoral content in the course of acts of an institutional nature, since this violates the duty of objectivity that public powers must safeguard at all times, and,with greater intensity, after the convocation of elections ”.
In the case of the complaint presented by the PSOE, the Central Electoral Board disfigures the regional president's statements during the presentation of an Iberia plane, on April 12: “We plan to invest more than 1,000 million in collaboration projects public-private ”, he said, detailing some examples below. The organ also reproaches Díaz Ayuso for his visit to the Valdebebas works, on April 16; and the consequent coverage on the website of the Community of Madrid. For this reason, in this case, the general direction of the regional government media is also required to refrain in the future from reproducing content of this type, also ordering it to remove those already published from all its platforms.
"Said messages are legitimate in acts of the candidate's electoral campaign, but they are not legitimate when they are disseminated within the framework of institutional acts, since they imply a breach of the principles of neutrality and equality among the candidates," the resolution underlines. And regarding the visit to Valdebebas's work, he reproaches: “Under the formal cover of a visit to the works of a bridge, an inauguration ceremony of the project of an unfinished public work is being carried out in a covert way. There is an electoral connotation, since it allows us to infer that it is an achievement made by those who have been managing the Community and the Madrid City Council ”.
Against the sanctions that are decided by the Provincial Electoral Board, there will be an appeal before the Central Electoral Board itself.
The law specifies that the maximum amount will be 1,200 euros for the Provincial Boards and 600 euros for the Zone Boards.
In the event that the central decides, the fine will be 300 to 3,000 euros in the case of authorities or officials.
Thus, in the last general elections, Pedro Sánchez (with 500 euros) or the Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá (with 2,200) were sanctioned.
Three warnings
In the case of Díaz Ayuso, the different electoral boards have already warned her on three occasions for using the presidency in favor of her candidacy. Thus, on March 25, the conservative leader was already reprimanded for using an institutional press conference to ask for the vote. On April 8, the Central Electoral Board asked him to "refrain from using expressions that may represent a campaign of achievements in future institutional events" in the context of the elections. And on April 10 he was ugly for the same reason after a visit to the La Paz hospital.
The body that regulates the elections has never had such a relevant role in the Madrid elections.
And their decisions have never been so controversial: the Constitutional Court endorsed a judgment of the Contentious-Administrative Court number five, which considered that Toni Cantó and Álvaro Conde did not meet the conditions to be on the electoral lists of the PP against the criteria of the electoral board.
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