On October 1st, we witnessed the final blow of the outdated Regime of '78, which opposed with batons and blows to citizens who demanded more democracy. The established order closed ranks, relying on a law used to defend the unity of Spain, but which does not respect its plurality. With the police intervention, the Government achieved just the opposite of what it intended, which was none other than to end the aspirations of a large part of the Catalan population to be able to vote. It is contradictory that in a modern democracy this right is denied to its citizens, and that at the same time the public powers emanating from it skip the democratic processes enabled to legitimize a cause in its name. And it is important to clarify our position on this, which remains the same from the beginning: a referendum cannot be held without guarantees, but neither can the demand of a people who want to vote be ignored. A fundamental right such as the right to vote, which has cost so much to achieve, must be taken very seriously.
As we say, all this is part of the decline of the Regime of '78. A system created in the midst of democratic transition that has become very obsolete because it has not evolved at the same rate as Spanish society.
The current conception of the territorial model of the State is the result of that Regime of '78. The autonomous system was born at that time, and if the Regime is outdated, many of the concepts, processes and tools are also outdated. This is the case, for example, of the Canarian electoral system, which was born as a way to guarantee the representativeness of the inhabitants of the less populated islands and has ended up being a perverse, unfair and totally undemocratic system.
It is a system created by the Canarian elites that has allowed a party that has been the third most voted party for a decade to perpetuate itself in power, and yet, the first in number of seats.
I imagine the laughter in certain offices in the Canary Islands in the last electoral processes and campaigns, where someone surely quotes Frank Underwood, the protagonist of 'House of Cards', saying "democracy is overrated".
And it is precisely this democratic deficit that we suffer in the Canary Islands that causes what we can call a snowball effect of delegitimization. In other words, it causes us to have a Parliament that is not very representative, where those who are most voted have fewer seats, thus allowing a minority to end up making decisions in favor of only a few privileged people, without taking into account the great social majority of the Canary Islands. And all this, under the excuse that the less populated islands must be sufficiently represented in the autonomous Chamber.
However, the ideologues and defenders of this profoundly undemocratic system ignore that the island with the greatest poverty is the one with the greatest representation in the electoral system. We are convinced that the inhabitants of El Hierro or La Gomera want real equality that manifests itself where it should be done: in the distribution of budgets, in infrastructures, in social and welfare policies, and not in an unfair distribution of the vote, which allows caciques to perpetuate themselves in their armchairs, and which has not served to equip themselves with the capital islands.
But what is more, these 33 years with this system have only served to make us occupy the last place in employment, development and social services in Spain and throughout the European Union. And the first in poverty. The disproportion, therefore, leads to a disproportion of all the decisions that are made in Parliament, which is manifested in the very evolution of the current Government of the Canary Islands, which no longer needs to hide. Mr. Clavijo was placed there by elites who only have one clear objective, to enrich themselves even more at the expense of all the Canarians, and as an example, the neoliberal and savage Land Law, written to measure for the big businessmen and which gives our most precious asset, the Canarian territory, to speculation. Clavijo does not need to hide or have any complexes. In fact, he is able to boast of our low wages and the precariousness of work that we suffer as a differentiating element with respect to other places. Our shame, his pride.
All this shows that the Regime of '78, that the Canarian electoral system, have led us to suffer a plundering, that the Government of the elites uses the instruments and its resources of the autonomous Administration to enrich themselves with impunity.
Therefore, the maintenance of this electoral system only has one explanation, to perpetuate in power a party that is close to the interests of a few, that whatever the result, always governs. And this has a name: it is a rigged election. A legal rigged election, but never legitimate.
From Podemos we are not going to settle for putting patches on a system that is leaking on all sides. We demand an authentic and profound reform.
It is important that we all educate people, that we take this debate to the streets, that everyone is aware of the undemocratic electoral system that we suffer in the Canary Islands. We ask for a Proportional Electoral Law. So that the unfair electoral system does not continue to generate an unfair country.
Noemí Santana, General Secretary of Podemos and spokesperson for the party in the Parliament of the Canary Islands