Manilva voters are once again to be called to the polls this weekend to decide the future of the local fairs and festivities. The Festivities department, backed by the mayor’s office, is starting a procedure that has been named a «Popular Consultation» («Consulta Popular»), regulated by the Junta de Andalucía through Article 71 of Law 7/1985 of 2 April, regulating the Bases of Local Government. It establishes that mayors, following an absolute majority agreement of the council meeting and authorisation from the Government of Spain, may put to a popular consultation those matters within the municipality’s own competence and of a local nature that are of particular importance to residents’ interests; a law that seeks precisely to guarantee this objectivity and independence, absolutely essential given the particular characteristics of the processes it regulates.
Procedure «According to the law regulating popular consultations in Andalusia»
This same law establishes a uniform procedural framework for all local popular consultations that may be held, guaranteeing the principles of transparency, publicity, participation and pluralism, regulating the necessary information campaign and the advance voting of electors, as well as the conduct of the vote and the count, and creating a Register of Consultations to facilitate their administrative monitoring and control.
The procedure for holding a popular consultation in Andalusia must go through the local council meeting and obtain a favourable absolute majority, a request to the Government of Spain, and notification to the Regional Ministry of Governance and the Zone Electoral Board.
The mayor’s decree with the report on the holding of this Popular Consultation would have to be published in the Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía between thirty and forty days before the date set for the vote. Within the five calendar days following that publication, it must be inserted in full in the Boletín Oficial de la Provincia to which the municipality belongs, made public in one of the most widely circulated media in the relevant local area, and posted on the notice board of Manilva Town Hall. This newsroom has no record of any publication in the aforementioned bulletins. At the time of publication we have been unable to find anything related on the notice board of Manilva Town Hall, nor any related item on the municipal website.
The draws to appoint Presidents and Members of the polling stations should have been held between the tenth and fifteenth days after publication of the decree calling the consultation.
The posts of President and Member of the polling stations are compulsory. The provisions of sections 2, 3 and 4 of Article 27 of the Organic Law on the General Electoral System apply to the appointment of these posts.
According to the law regulating this procedure, the length of the information campaign will be that set in the decree calling the consultation, and may in no case be less than ten days or more than fifteen, and it must end at midnight on the day before the one set for the vote.
Voters may only express their decision using the monosyllables «sí» or «no», written by themselves or by using marks that make their answer sufficiently clear in one sense or the other, or by leaving blank the space provided for this purpose. Ballot papers with the answers printed on them may also be produced.
ADVANCE VOTING «According to the law regulating popular consultations in Andalusia»
1. Electors may cast their vote in advance before the Zone Electoral Board from the twentieth day following publication of the decree calling the consultation in the
Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía.
2. Advance voting must be requested in person, before the Zone Electoral Board, by the elector, who must provide a certificate of inclusion on the electoral roll issued for this purpose by the Town Hall Secretary. Once identification has been completed, the Secretary of the Board must provide the person concerned with the documentation needed to cast their vote, which must be held in safekeeping by the Board until the day of the vote, when it must be sent to the relevant polling station before 20:00.
3. The Town Hall Secretary, when issuing the certificate referred to in the previous section for advance voting, must note it in the list of electors that will be sent to the polling station, so that the person cannot vote in person on voting day.
4. Advance voting may be carried out up to the second day before the day of the vote.
5. The Zone Electoral Board, after hearing the Town Hall, may, if necessary, put in place any measures it considers appropriate to speed up this form of voting.
Manilva is unique
In Manilva, the intention, with a post on its social media channels just 3 days in advance and without publication of the regulatory rules in the official media that could give a degree of transparency and formality to the procedure, is to hold this «popular consultation» and use it as an excuse when taking a decision on the municipality’s festivities.
Consulting residents is a wonderful measure and applauded by all, but it is regulated by law, with formalities, requirements and procedures that must be followed for its results to have any validity.
Leer esta noticia en español →
