The Central Electoral Board has officially confirmed that the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, has “violated” the neutrality imposed by law in the periods prior to the holding of elections. Consequently, she initiates a disciplinary file against the minister to elucidate the corresponding sanction in her case and, at the same time, urges the Executive to remove from the institutional website of La Moncloa the evaluative statements that also include references to political rivals.
The resolution of the Board, motivated by a complaint from the Popular Party, requires Rodríguez to “extreme his diligence” and “avoid in future institutional acts violating the principle of neutrality that the public powers are obliged to respect during the electoral process, in application of the article 50.2 of the Loreg”. The JEC insists on this reminder “in view of the repeated violations” appreciated in the actions of the Government spokesperson.
Isabel Rodríguez is now pending a possible sanction that must be determined in her case by the case instructor, the Board member Andrés Palomo del Arco, acting with the collaboration of the secretary Carlos Gutiérrez Vicén.
Article 50.2 of the Loreg, which the JEC considers violated, prohibits, from the time the elections are called until they are held, any act organized or financed, directly or indirectly, by the public authorities that contains allusions to the accomplishments or achievements obtained by the Public authorities.
Furthermore, this article must be interpreted in light of the constitutional precepts that impose the principle of equality in the exercise of the right to passive suffrage and the principle of neutrality of the public powers, in such a way that “the use of institutional public means violating the principle of neutrality entails in turn the bankruptcy of the principle of equality”.
In the case that affects the minister spokesperson, the Board condemns the use of the press conference after the Council of Ministers to issue “evaluative allusions that disqualify the actions of a certain political party, along with negative assessments regarding its capacity or his intentions. All of this, she points out, “would be carrying electoral connotations.”
This warning, although without entailing the opening of a disciplinary file, is also made to the third vice president and minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera.
In both cases, the Board rejects the allegations made by the Government, pointing out that in both cases the ministers responded to questions from the journalists and that, consequently, there was no “premeditation” in their words and evaluations. This argument, according to the JEC, does not exempt them from the duty of diligence that they must demonstrate in their institutional interventions.
And with regard to the case of Isabel Rodríguez, he adds: “This would not be the first time that the minister spokesperson would be breaking the prohibition established in article 50.2; since previously she was already required by the Central Electoral Board on two occasions” .
Nor does the Board admit the allegation that there has been a “will to minimize the impact of the statements subject to appeal by the denounced ministers” by having already removed them from the institutional website since said deletion was carried out on May 3 when the statements were made on April 25 and were denounced on the 28th. Consequently, the JEC points out that the aforementioned “will to minimize its impact has been scarce.”
The resolution of the Electoral Board occurs as a consequence of the complaint presented by the PP as a result of Rodríguez’s words at the press conference after the Council of Ministers on April 25 when a journalist was interested in the opinion they deserved to the Government the criticisms made by the PP after the exhumation of the remains of Primo de Rivera.
In her response, the minister spokesperson branded the arguments of the Popular Party as “pilgrims”. And he added: “What seems noise to the Popular Party is neither more nor less than complying with a law that has emanated from Parliament. And of course the Government is in trouble that the PP is not there, that it is neither wait, that he has not been there throughout this legislature, that he has not been there when he was needed to respond to the pandemic and that he has not participated in each and every one of the great advances that this country has made despite the circumstances. Neither in the reforms for workers such as the labor reform, nor the increases in the minimum wage, nor the increase in pensions, nor now to attend to the public housing policy, it is not there and is not expected and, therefore, they have to resort to these kinds of arguments to attack the government, because they have nothing to offer Spain”.
The JEC concludes that said “assessments and critical assessments of the opposition and its decisions” in the course of an institutional intervention and making use of public resources “violate the prohibition that stems from article 50.2 of the Loreg.” They could, he points out, “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.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
