As has been argued throughout the past month (here), the reform of the electoral system in the Canary Islands is at a crucial moment in the search for the desired consensus. The fight for improvement has been going on for many years, with countless presentations (here), studies (here or here) and mobilizations (here) that have highlighted how detrimental this mechanism of translating votes into seats is, which, while still an instrument, is the basis of any democratic system. In any case, today I will not analyze the details of such a system, nor the effects it causes. What I have set out to do, in order to clarify the debate in the non-capital islands where I believe there is still a palpable lack of knowledge about this issue, is to try to question the main arguments that have been used to discredit the reform, which I consider mere myths, legends that have nothing to do with reality.
First myth: "A reduction in the number of deputies elected by the non-capital islands will diminish public and/or media attention, public policies and investments that could be decided in the Parliament of the Canary Islands in favor of the non-capital islands." Nothing could be further from the truth. As is known, the main public decisions are taken in the legislative bodies, or in the governments, which also emanate from the parliaments. These, although it could be considered that they are formally composed of individual deputies, are fundamentally organized around the parliamentary groups, a reflection of the political parties in the representative chambers. Not in vain, Spanish parliamentarianism has been labeled "groupocratic", due to the absolute dominance that parliamentary groups exert in the life of the Assemblies to the detriment of parliamentarians individually considered. Political parties, therefore, monopolize the legislative work, mediating the mandate, the representative relationship established between the citizen and the candidate. On the other hand, a maxim of the theory of representation is the prohibition of the imperative mandate, that mandate that leaves no room for the deputy to make his own decisions and in which the represented can give instructions to their representative. As this does not happen, other dynamics are imposed when deciding public affairs. The discipline that exists within the parliamentary groups stands out, with few cases in which a dissenting deputy deviates from the guidelines of his group. There are no cases in the Canarian Parliament in which deputies from the same political group have voted in a different sense on the same issue, depending on their island of origin. Therefore, to affirm that a smaller number of deputies from a certain island will cause a lesser influence of this one is totally false, since with eight, five or three, the capacity to make individual decisions is very scarce.
Second myth: "The triple parity is what has determined equality and solidarity between the islands." I do not dispute that symbolically the triple parity has wanted to solve the territorial (fragmentation), institutional (provinces) and political (lawsuits between capitals) divisions trying to equate them, but I doubt its effects on the social, economic and political development, not only of the non-capital islands, but of the Canary Islands as a whole. It was a necessary element to unblock the pre-autonomy debates, where the representatives of the non-capital islands distrusted the continuous lawsuits between Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as well as raised their historical deficit in comparison with the two most populated islands. The mechanism that was used for this purpose was the elaboration of that triple parity that, de facto, has not solved the problems that the islands suffer. It is necessary to overcome this if we want to look at each other equally, if we want to leave aside the historical fractures and the inter-island lawsuits.
Third myth: "The implementation of a regional constituency, which reduces the weight of the current island constituencies, would cause a distancing between the voter and his representative, which would undermine accountability; on the other hand, the representativeness of the territory would be violated." There is no conclusive agreement today, within Political Science, that corroborates that the closer the deputy is to his territory, the greater the responsibility or accountability with his electorate. There are cases where this hypothesis may have some basis, as in the uninominal majority systems where a deputy is elected per district. However, in the case of the elections to the Spanish Senate, and specifically in the non-capital islands where a senator is elected for each of them, we can see how there is no such proximity between the senator and the population. Nor does it seem to be the case of Ceuta and Melilla in the elections to the Congress of Deputies. A closer election does not always cause better political responsibility. With regard to the vulnerability of the representation of the island territories, it is based on the fact that the Canarian Chamber must represent the territories above the population, an erroneous issue with regard to the very genesis of the legislative power. Parliaments are chambers of population representation where citizens are represented and an attempt is made to ensure that there is congruence between social reality and parliamentary composition. The autonomous parliaments are not, in any case, territorial chambers. For this purpose, there are the Upper Chambers or the Senates. In the case of the Canary Islands, it is the Island Councils that have the power to represent their territories, they are, as the first island institutions, in addition to being bodies of the Autonomous Community, those that pursue the particular interests of their territorial scope. It should be remembered, in this sense, that in the Parliament of the Canary Islands these bodies already enjoy an important presence in the General Commission of Island Councils.
Likewise, a regional constituency -or an equivalent mechanism of autonomous scope such as the "pool or college of remainders" proposed by the forum Democrats for Change-, which coexists with the island constituency, in addition to increasing proportionality, would help to improve a Canarian consciousness, specifically, it would help to create a region. If all Canarian men and women voted together for a regional list that represented the entire people, a step forward would be taken for the real elaboration of a collective community, beyond the current passive cultural community. With this I enter into the fourth and last myth.
Fourth myth: "The island must be maintained as a frame of reference because there is an exclusive island feeling." In my opinion, this is where the problem that the Canary Islands has been dragging since its birth as a political entity lies. It is empirically proven that the economic, social and political dynamics have been structured around the island as an unquestionable physical element. For example, political parties, whatever their scope, elaborate their electoral campaigns specifically for each of the seven islands, finding disparities in the speeches within the same political organization. Also the organizational structure of the Canarian political forces, even those of state scope, responds to this insular organic scheme. The question that I ask myself is the following: is it the insularity, understood as an exclusive insular feeling, that makes the political parties follow these dynamics? Or is insularity a rhetoric used by the parties that leads them to obtain electoral benefits? To consider this is important, since it is not the same to channel a given feeling, than to create a political discourse to justify political decisions. Fernando Estévez introduced it in an exceptional way when raising the challenge of studying insularity in its discursive or cultural forms, being of vital importance the analysis of the different forms that could derive from such fact.
In the framework of my university analysis I have tried to corroborate that the island identity does not differ from the Canarian or regional identity. For this I suggest that you consider whether you feel more identified with your island of origin than with the Canary Islands as a whole, or if you consider yourself as much from your island as Canarian. The answers to these questions may determine that the exclusive island identity does not exist, but that it has been created under the blanket of political rhetoric, in many cases, excuses to cover up the ineffectiveness in public management.
Thus, we could continue to list myths that try to discredit the reform of our electoral system, attributing that it does not take into account the non-capital islands. Certainly these myths come from sectors reluctant to such reform, since the status quo benefits them. It is reasonable that those parties that have come to power based on this system, have no incentives to change it but, even if this is true, how far are you willing to go in order to maintain power? Electoral systems are the most vulnerable instruments of the political system, since, as the political scientist Giovanni Sartori pointed out, they are the most specifically manipulable political instruments, so the effects can be catastrophic for democratic quality. We must exercise responsibility, both citizens and public representatives. Any step to improve our organizational structures and representative institutions will be beneficial for the whole of the Canary Islands. If we want to build a region, let's start from the base. The reform of the electoral system is a good start.
By Ayoze Corujo Hernández. Political scientist from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Master's student in Political Analysis at the Complutense University of Madrid.
