"The suspicion is that we are facing a deliberate maneuver." The Popular Party denounces the passivity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when it comes to complying with the mandate of the Supreme Court (TS) to discriminate against naturalized citizens through the law of grandchildren who cannot vote. And he believes that it is a scheme to bypass the High Court's precautionary prohibition.
EL MUNDO has reported this Sunday that the delay by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in gathering data on the 163,000 nationalized citizens whose right to vote has been suspended threatens to unleash a huge legal battle after the general elections on November 29. And a barrage of challenges to the results.
Asked about this information, PP sources have assured that "this situation is not coincidental nor does it respond to a bureaucratic problem that has arisen." "The suspicion is that we are facing a deliberate maneuver: letting time pass to make compliance with the judicial resolution materially impossible without anyone being directly accused of disobedience."
That is to say: the PP accuses the Executive of trying to "achieve through facts what the Supreme Court has prevented through law."
As EL MUNDO revealed on Friday, the General Directorate of Spaniards Abroad and Consular Affairs, which belongs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has not yet transferred to the Census Office the non-computerized data on who are affected by the Supreme Court's measures to provisionally suspend the vote, which of them have certified that they are grandchildren or children of exiles and, in general, who complies or does not comply with the law.
The electoral authorities of the Census Office have confirmed that right now there is no sign that what the Supreme Court has ordered can be fulfilled 100%: that the Government discern in time, one by one, which of those nationalized by the law on grandchildren can vote and which cannot.
For Alberto Núñez Feijóo's team, this "is a consequence of the inaction of the Government, which since September 10 knew that it had to mobilize all the necessary means to comply with the order of the Supreme Court and guarantee the review of the electoral roll," but has not done so.
Foreign sources assure that "the Spanish consulates are doing their utmost to comply with the precautionary measures of the Supreme Court on the vote of people naturalized under the Democratic Memory Law." "Foreign Service officials are dedicating all their time to this effort. They do it in an excessively short period of time for the volume of files, many of them not computerized, and in a schedule accelerated by the electoral call," they lament.
But in the PP they insist that there is no valid excuse, as the TS already said on October 13: "The Government has the obligation to guarantee clean elections on November 29. Just having to remember it shows the seriousness of what is happening." "We are not only talking about the electoral roll, but also about respect for Justice, legal security and the trust of Spaniards in their institutions," add the PP sources consulted by this newspaper.
If the bureaucratic blockade continues and there is no way to 100% count the veto of suspended voters, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether to annul the entire external vote or lift the precautionary measures and allow a total scrutiny.
Both options would generate challenges to the elections in each constituency. Either on the part of the left-wing parties - for example, Félix Bolaños, of the PSOE, has denounced the "altered census" - or on the part of Vox and Iustitia Europa, which were the ones who appealed this matter before the High Court.
No one - not the Central Electoral Board, not the Census Office, not Foreign Affairs, not the Supreme Court itself - is clear at this time how the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) will finally be constituted.
