Central Electoral Board warns Moreno for his statements on the release of a loggerhead turtle

The Central Electoral Board has warned the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, for some demonstrations carried out in an institutional act of releasing a Loggerhead turtle in the middle of the electoral period in which he praised the work of his Government and although he does not open a file penalizing if you ask him to “extreme his diligence”.

This recommendation is produced to “avoid violating the principle of neutrality that public powers are obliged to respect during the electoral process, in application of article 50.2 of the LOREG”, according to the agreement of the Central Electoral Board.

The pronouncement of the Board responds to a complaint from the PSOE against Moreno and the Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy and Government Spokesperson, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, for statements made, during the electoral period, during the release of a loggerhead turtle in the area of ??Punta Candor in Rota (Cádiz) and its dissemination on the website and in the institutional accounts on social networks of the Junta de Andalucía.

In this act, organized to coincide with the “World Day of Sea Turtles”, after thanking the collaboration that different entities maintain with the Autonomous Administration in environmental matters, Moreno underlined the words that have been the object of warning: “(… ) the determination of a society, a determination that is expressed in the will of that society, through its Government, the Government of Andalusia, that we have a firm commitment to environmental sustainability, to the defense of our natural values ??and, Of course, the defense of all those species that are sadly threatened as a consequence, especially of climate change (…)”.

According to the Electoral Board, these statements “praise the management of the Junta de Andalucía in terms of species recovery” and were “mostly read in the course of a public act of an institutional nature, with which it can be inferred that they were not the result of a spontaneous intervention, or as a result of questions formulated by journalists, but rather that it was a matter of previously thought out and prepared demonstrations”.

It determines that these manifestations make up “a single message within the whole of the intervention of the President of the Andalusian Government that falls within the scope of an electoral campaign, which is precisely what article 50.2 of the LOREG prohibits in institutional acts public, to the extent that from reading the aforementioned statements it is logical to infer a message aimed at promoting in its recipients a favorable assessment of the management of the regional government in environmental matters, which is characteristic of what is usually known as “campaign of achievements”, says the letter.

“The realization of value assessments with an electoral connotation such as those referred to above could be legitimate in the course of a campaign act or in the ordinary exercise of freedom of expression, but not in the performance of the institutional activity of a public authority” , refine the text.

For this reason, it concludes that these demonstrations “violated the prohibition that stems from article 50.2 of the LOREG”, therefore, although it does not believe that “the initiation of a sanctioning file against the President of the Andalusian Government” is appropriate, it does urge him to ” extreme diligence to avoid violating the principle of neutrality that public powers are obliged to respect during the electoral process”.

It also indicates that “it is not appropriate to extend a similar warning to the Government of Andalusia as a whole, as requested by the complainant, since there is no evidence that there has been a violation” of the aforementioned article by said body.