With the study commission for the reform of the Canarian electoral system established, it is time to analyze our system in a calm manner from comparative and legal studies with the contribution of experts and representatives of the different political forces. We are all aware of the significance that the decisions finally adopted within that Commission have for the future of the Canary Islands.
The function of any electoral system is to transform votes into institutional representation through a norm. The Organic Law 5/1985 of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) defines the state system as proportional and it uses the d'Hondt formula to divide the number of votes cast for each party by the number of elected officials that each constituency has.
The proportional electoral system aims to give each political group a representation quota approximate to its electoral quota and for this we must take into account the magnitude of the constituencies. In the Canary Islands, the Parliament Chamber has an average size (60 deputies), compared to the maximum that Catalonia has (135) and the minimum of La Rioja (33). The Constitution in article 68, makes the number of representatives in the autonomous Parliaments more flexible, allowing each Community to adapt to its own characteristics.
When the Canarian electoral system was approved, a commitment was made to achieve territorial balances that represented the administrative organization of the Community and its population. To this end, the statutory members developed a complex electoral system based on the search for parities between both provinces, 30 deputies for each; between the capital islands, 15 for each; and between the less populated islands, 30 deputies in total, distributed according to their population.
With this rule, based on a joint vision of the Canary Islands, it was aspired to achieve a more cohesive territory after years of historical island dispute and having left the smaller islands in ostracism.
The triple parity is born in the Archipelago as a product of that previous situation and, certainly, since representation has been given in Parliament to the less populated islands we have been able to advance: without seats we are condemned to live from the autocratic decisions of the capital islands as it was in the past.
That difference in representativeness between islands, resulting from the 1982 model, has guaranteed us a system of balances and solidarity between the capital islands and the rest, which today is considered unfair by some political and social forces.
It is true that nothing is immovable. I argue that electoral systems must be flexible and adapt to the social and demographic circumstances of the territory, but we must also take into account our fragmented reality. All the islands must obtain representation in Parliament but it is practically impossible to apply a rigorous uniformity criterion due to the size of the population that inhabits each of the constituencies.
This difficulty cannot stop our aspirations and if we have to change the system, because an option is found that improves the current one, we must do so but, I insist, without forgetting a fair representation of each of the islands.
The complexity and the challenge presented to the Study Commission lies in the definition of a representative and proportional model, in which the aspiration of each island does not represent a brake for the development of the Archipelago and in which all political forces present and defend their proposals from their commitment to all the Canary Islands.
Migdalia Machín Tavío, Deputy for Lanzarote