There is a place, defined as democratic, where the third most voted party governs. Where whoever wins, the same people have always governed for more than 30 years. Where the vote of some citizens is worth 14 times more than that of others. Where 1,800,000 inhabitants elect the same number of deputies as 350,000, or what is the same, half of the Parliament is elected by 17 percent of the population.
There is a place that has the highest electoral barriers in all of Europe, since in order to have the right to a seat, it is necessary to obtain 30 percent of the votes at the island level or achieve 6 percent at the regional level.
A place where obtaining a seat costs a party 19,000 votes, while it costs another 1,700. A place where too many thousands of citizens see how their vote is left out of the Chamber that should be representative of the popular will.
In that place, the effective threshold of representation - the number of votes necessary to achieve representation - is the highest in the State of which it is a part, in fact it is almost double: 8.2% compared to the average of 3.9% in the country as a whole.
There is a place where they call democracy an electoral system that, with these data in hand, has little democratic about it. Terrible paradox that we inhabit. A place that, out of 65 electoral systems, occupies 64th place according to a study carried out by the Complutense University of Madrid. Only Tanzania has a more unfair electoral system than ours.
This place is called the Canary Islands. And it can't wait any longer. The debate on the reform of the Statute of Autonomy is coming to the Congress of Deputies these days, and should include a true reform of our electoral system because it has long ceased to be a political issue to become a matter of common sense.
The false blackmail that has been used for more than 30 years is no longer valid, they are no longer effective, because they have sold representation to the smaller islands and then forgotten them in the budgets. An old trick that no longer serves to deceive anyone. The most rewarded island by the electoral system is El Hierro, which in turn is the island with the highest poverty rate in the entire Archipelago.
The inhabitants of El Hierro or La Gomera want to see real equality, which is manifested where it should: in the distribution of budgets, in infrastructure and in social and welfare policies, and not in an unfair distribution of the vote that has not served them at all to equate themselves with the capital islands, but rather the opposite. And that on top of that is the rope that keeps them tied by caciques who only understand Democracy as a tool to perpetuate themselves in power.
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 equation is clear: a bad electoral system results in bad governments. A bad democracy has led us to a bad reality in our day to day.
The disproportion of our system leads to a disproportion of all the decisions that are made in the Parliament of the Canary Islands. Our system is flawed at the origin
Are budgets in which some citizens influence above others legitimate and fair? The sentence that affirms that the over-representation of some islands over others is necessary for legislation to be more balanced is not only unfair, but has been shown to be false. The result shown by the facts is that this system does not benefit people, but political parties.
There is an exhaustion of the Regime of 78 in the State as a whole, and of the regime of 82 in the Canary Islands. Both systems were necessary at the time, and there are things to recognize and thank them for. But now is the time for change.
The maintenance of this electoral system only has a logical explanation that no one can dare to deny: to perpetuate in power a party that, whatever the result, always governs. It is time to put aside particular interests and think about general interests. This has a name: it is a rigged election. A legal rigged election, but never legitimate. And electoral rigged elections, at this point in the 21st century, have no place in a Europe that must be of the people, and of no one else.
From Podemos we are not going to settle for patching up a system that is leaking on all sides. We demand an authentic and profound reform. With the debate on the Statute of Autonomy we have the opportunity to change the electoral system. It is vital and necessary because only with a real democracy can we defend our people.
Noemí Santana, Spokesperson for Podemos in the Parliament of the Canary Islands
