The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has warned the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, for violating article 50.2 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), which prohibits allusions to the achievements obtained by public authorities since the electoral call or criticism of other political parties, in a press conference after the Council of Ministers, although he has clarified that the initiation of a disciplinary file is not appropriate, as the PP claimed.
The ‘populares’ requested the opening of a disciplinary file against the Minister of the Presidency for using the Moncloa press conference to carry out “electoralism”, violating, in their opinion “blatantly”, the principle of neutrality that the law requires of the public powers in electoral period.
In the resolution, the arbitration body urges Bolaños “to issue the appropriate instructions so that during the remainder of the electoral period, evaluative statements are withdrawn from the institutional website”, and that, in future institutional acts, “extreme his diligence to avoid violating the principle of neutrality that public powers are obliged to respect during the electoral process”.
Thus, the JEC has also explained that the use of an institutional act, such as the press conference after the Council of Ministers, would be in breach of article 50.2 of the LOREG, having been issued during it “assessments that disqualify the leader of another political formation”, in reference to the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as well as “laudious allusions to achievements and achievements resulting from the management carried out” by the Government of which the minister is a part.
The PP’s complaint echoed an intervention in Bolaños on June 6, at the Moncloa Palace, in which, asked about the “repeal” of the PP to measures by the Sánchez Executive, the minister pointed out that “the project political” of Feijóo “is to repeal” and “is destructive. “It is making our country go backwards, repealing advances that we have approved during this legislature,” criticized the government representative.
Along the same lines, the JEC has argued that, in this case, “the principle of institutional neutrality would be being broken” –which derives from article 103.1 of the Constitution and which develops article 50.2 of the LOREG– due to the fact that Bolaños carried out “Critical evaluations and appreciations that convey, even indirectly, the idea that the political project of the main candidate from another political formation is a destructive project.”
In addition, the body has recalled that, in previous agreements, the JEC has already indicated that “it must be made very clear” that the senior officials of the Public Administrations “are at the service of all Spaniards and that, consequently, the partisan use for the benefit of a certain political faction, of the institutional resources assigned to them”.
“The making of evaluative allusions and appreciations with an electoral connotation 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,” has resolution completed.
In this context, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, has opened two disciplinary proceedings in the JEC for violating her duty of neutrality when she appears in Moncloa as a spokesperson during the electoral period and that can lead to fines of between 300 and 3,000 euro.
