The Secretary of Self-Government of the Canarian Coalition (CC), Fernando Ríos, believes that the President of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gabriel Mato, should make his position available to the Bureau of the Chamber after the decision of the Canary Islands Council to reject Mato's request for a second opinion on the Draft Law on the Reform of the Statute of Autonomy.
Ríos stated in statements to ACN Press that the Advisory Council has removed the legal reason from the President of the Parliament, by pointing out that Mato is not competent to request a second opinion. The body competent to request a report from the Advisory Council is the Committee on Governance, Justice and Economic Development, which has already rejected this possibility, said Ríos, who reiterated that the President of the Chamber should resign "because he has made a decision against other parliamentary bodies".
"If the President of the Parliament of the Canary Islands has an institutional sense, he should make his position available to the Bureau of the Institution", Ríos stressed, who hopes that for the good of the Parliament Mato will be self-critical because he has not acted correctly.
However, Gabriel Mato has already announced that he does not consider resigning because it would seem like absolute cowardice. He would do so, he said, if he had been wrong or if he had made the decision with bad intentions.
Despite Mato's intention to remain in office, CC will wait until after the holidays to assess the situation and consider measures against the President of the Chamber, Ríos said, who recalled that from a political point of view Mato's decision was not the right one and now the Advisory Council has removed the legal reason.
"The PP has tried to use a legal loophole and we do not know if the party or the popular group will keep another trick up their sleeve, but from a political and legal point of view there are no obstacles for the Statute to continue its processing", stressed the Secretary of Self-Government of CC, who invited the PP to present an appeal if it observes unconstitutionality, as it has done with the Catalan statute.
The PSOE threatens with a motion of censure
For his part, the general secretary of the Canarian socialists, Juan Carlos Alemán, stated that the president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gabriel Mato, should resign immediately, after being "politically discredited" by the Canary Islands Advisory Council, and maintains that if he does not do so he will be maintaining the "indignity" until the end. In addition, he announces that if Mato remains in his position, the PSC-PSOE will study in September all the necessary measures for him to leave, without ruling out a motion of censure.
Juan Carlos Alemán expressed himself in these terms after learning of the decision of the Canary Islands Advisory Council not to admit Mato's request to draw up a second opinion on the draft law to reform the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands, and said that if Mato had "shame" he should have resigned after adopting a decision behind the back of Parliament.
"The decision of the Advisory Council is a political setback of the first order for the President of the Parliament, whose current position is of absolute fragility, and he has no other way out, if he wants to maintain dignity, than to present his resignation as normal payment for an error of these characteristics and having allowed himself to be manipulated by the Popular Party (PP)", Alemán stressed.
The also president of the socialist parliamentary group criticized that Mato informed the media before the parliamentary groups of the decision of the advisory body, and accused him of acting as if he represented himself.
He insisted on asking for his resignation because he does not have the support of the majority of the Chamber, and reproached him for "clinging to the chair even if he is dragged". Alemán said that Mato acts as "a small dictator" in Parliament, and reminded him that he has been appointed by the Chamber, not by providence.
"The normal thing is that he would accept his mistake and go home", emphasized Alemán, who reproached Mato for his attachment to the position, not to defend the interests of the Canarians, but those of his party, in order to occupy a position on the electoral lists of the PP.
Alemán said that the level of abuses committed by Mato is "unprecedented" in the Parliament of the Canary Islands. "The president of the regional Chamber has destroyed his neutrality and cannot remain", he added.
