The president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, this Tuesday in the Parliament. Kike Rincón (Europa Press)
The news about the formalization of the accusations for corruption that weigh on the president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, resounded this Tuesday in the Parliament.
The novelty altered the agenda of the weekly meeting of the Table, chaired by Borràs herself, and extended the meeting for more than four hours.
Sources present pointed out that the Junts policy alleged that they had not even received the notification and did not want to go into the details of their legal case.
She sent the explanations to Thursday, in a new meeting of the Table that will have as the only item on the agenda the file that affects the president.
With the order to open the oral trial in hand, Laura Borràs reaches a crossroads in her political path and leads to an unprecedented situation in Parliament: never before has there been a threat that the highest representation of the autonomous Chamber would become vacant.
The Parliament faces a power vacuum if Borràs manages to maneuver to become a president without office but with a commanding voice.
What her faithful proclaim as "legitimate president", a term that the independence movement has already invented to define the shadow leadership exercised by Carles Puigdemont.
The leader of Junts per Catalunya has insisted that she does not intend to resign from her political responsibilities, alleging that her prosecution for corruption responds to an alleged judicial persecution for her pro-independence ideas.
Her exculpatory thesis has had little support.
Neither Esquerra nor the CUP share it, and it even generates misgivings within some circles of Junts per Catalunya, where it is feared that an entrenchment of the leader will leave the party in a minority position in the Parliamentary Table.
If she does not voluntarily withdraw, the institution's regulations provide in article 25.4 a mechanism for a deputy affected by corruption cases to be suspended until her responsibilities are clarified in a trial.
Given the case, it should be the Table who will vote if it is appropriate to corner Borràs.
left,
PSC and the CUP have six members in the Table, for two of Junts.
Borràs could not speak out in a cause that directly affects her and the vote of her partner Aurora Madaula is announced as the only one in favor of shielding the president.
Esquerra would prefer it to be the one involved who decided to step aside, but if that does not happen, the warning is clear: "We are not going to leave even a millimeter of margin for corruption to become entrenched in the institutions," Marta announced on Monday. Vilalta, spokesman for the Republicans.
"It's about preserving the institution," she insisted on Tuesday.
The CUP has also shown signs of wanting to remove Borràs from Parliament, as has the PSC.
Salvador Illa, first secretary of the Catalan Socialists, contacted Borràs by telephone on Tuesday to ask him to "step aside", according to the PSC spokeswoman, Alícia Romero.
"The regulation must always be applied, whether we like it or not, and on Thursday we will vote in favor of the suspension," Romero advanced.
If Borràs resigns, Junts has the possibility of appointing a substitute, with which he would keep the number of deputies in the plenary session and ensure that he retains the two chairs he already has on the table.
If Borràs does not resign, the suspension of her functions as a deputy reduces Junts' representativeness, at least temporarily, until a hypothetical acquittal arrives.
Defining who will fall to the presidency of the Autonomous Chamber is one of the points that must be outlined in the coming days.
Esquerra insists that his will is to respect the agreement reached with Junts at the beginning of the legislature, according to which the two parties shared the presidencies of the Generalitat and the Parlament.
But, if Borràs does not resign to facilitate a replacement within Junts, his responsibilities jump directly to the vice president of the Parliament, Alba Vergés, from ERC.
The former Minister of Health has oriented her future towards municipal politics, she intends to be mayor of Igualada, but a plenary vote would be needed for any movement of chairs in the Table that promotes someone from Junts to the presidency.
In this scenario, the current secretary Aurora Madaula appears as the best placed.
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