Stick dance of Aliança Catalana in Garraf: first challenge of a local executive

BarcelonaA family photograph, with about thirty people, staged the election of the new executive committee of Aliança Catalana in Cubelles on October 26th. It was an image intended to project a sense of strength and unity that did not correspond with reality because the majority of those present were from other towns in the Garraf region. With two opposing candidacies, the assembly of that October 26th turned into a 'ball de bastons' – a traditional dance deeply rooted in this region – with a walkout by those who lost.

Even one of the members of the losing list left their membership card on the table of the party's organization secretary, Oriol Gès, who was the one coordinating the assembly. The sector that lost the congress accuses him of bias for ignoring various irregularities that allowed for the victory of the establishment candidate. Because of all this, the losers do not recognize the validity of the electoral process and have brought it to the guarantee commission, as ARA has learned. This is the first challenge to the election of a local executive committee. Contacted by ARA, Gès did not wish to comment on the case.

The selection of the executive committee had been deadlocked since February due to the struggle between the two sectors to choose the candidate: those who eventually prevailed wanted Àngels Grifell and the defeated ones, Laura Vilar. The inclusion of a person from the winning candidacy on a consensus list in April did not resolve the situation either. Neither the February executive proposal nor the April one were validated by the leadership. The losers believe that Gès wanted Grifell's list to win, keeping in mind that in some telephone conversation the former allegedly expressed his support for her candidacy, according to witnesses present, as they denounce in the challenge.

Faced with this impasse, the leadership called a third assembly at the end of October with only seven days' notice when the internal regulations state that 45 days must pass. “We challenged it and Aurora Fornos, head of legal services, replied to us that this article was a mistake,” denounces one of the militants who has signed the challenge. If the 45-day deadline had been respected, the losers claim, they would have won because they would have had the support of five more members who would have been in the party for six months, and therefore, would be able to vote. And the fact is that the victory of one side or the other came down to a few votes: the winning list received 8 votes and the other 5.

Non-payments, files and unfavorable reports

Eight votes that could be fewer because the losers have indications of other irregularities. Two people who were chosen by the local committee had regularized “three days before the vote” their outstanding fees, which should have prevented them from voting because the statutes establish that “payment outside the established deadline for reasons attributable to the member entails a penalty of six months to recover the full rights of membership”. One of these two people, moreover, had an unfavorable report from the regional committee related to their different political links that would have made it so they could not be chosen. Nor could Grifell, with an open disciplinary file, have voted.

And it does not end there. They also question the vote of another member who has no direct link with Cubelles, beyond a friendship with a member, which would prevent their right to vote in the assembly, as the statutes mark. Furthermore, this person was allowed to delegate their vote, unlike another member from the losing sector, who was not answered and understood that she could do so.

The losing candidacy wanted to put all these alleged irregularities on the table at the beginning of the assembly, but Gès assumed the direction of the session when it was the responsibility of the electoral board and did not allow them to be formulated. The claimants make it clear that the challenging of the electoral process is not a result of the voting outcome: “We are not challenging these elections because we do not accept a defeat, but because the necessary guarantees to hold fair elections were not respected”.

At the end of the assembly, one of the members of the losing list announced that they would challenge the process so it would be recorded in the minutes. When they were leaving the room, Gès approached the person who said it and with a smile said to him “I await your challenge”, in front of other members of his sector. The brawl has resulted in four resignations and seven more are expected, which are pending the resolution of the challenge, which would leave the party with half of the members it had in Cubelles.

A third of the members in Vilanova resign

The stick dance in Cubelles has had repercussions in Vilanova i la Geltrú. “22 of the 60 members the party had have left and more will do so,” reports one of those who resigned. These departures occurred due to the dismissal, as reported by ARA, of the regional president and mayoral candidate, Xavier Cusiné, due to a pending minor judicial matter. “The majority of these departures are because of his exit, things were not done well, Aliança is becoming less democratic and more hermetic each time; Gès is the one who calls the shots in the territory and does not listen to the grassroots,” he adds. “Cusiné's expulsion has left the list in Vilanova in a very compromised situation, still without a candidate,” he concludes.