The Housing adviser, Ovidio Zapico, has decided to stop attending “indefinitely” the oversight sessions of the General Board in which he must answer questions and initiatives from the opposition, as a gesture of protest in response to the blockage in the processing of the Housing Law. At the same time, he has requested protection from the Chamber’s Bureau against the attitude of PP, Vox and Foro.
Zapico has formally conveyed his decision to the president of the Asturian Chamber, Juan Cofiño, through a letter that he delivered to him during the ordinary Plenary. In that session, the adviser was first challenged by the deputy from the Mixed Group for Foro, Adrián Pumares, and subsequently by Vox parliamentarian, Gonzalo Centeno.
During his intervention, the adviser accused the three right-wing groups of deliberately blocking the report on the Housing Law. “You, Vox, Foro and PP have been for weeks kidnapping the democratic will of this Parliament without going to work in the sessions of the report on the housing law. You intend to subvert from your idleness the popular will expressed here in the majority in the progressive groups of the Chamber. I believe it is an unprecedented fact in the history of democracy of the Asturian Parliament, a genuine institutional blow. Evidently, they are only the useful idiots of this operation behind which are the economic powers of our autonomous community,” Zapico lamented.
The Housing official described the situation as “an unprecedented crisis” and held the “moderate PP president, Álvaro Queipo” responsible for “sending his deputies not to go to work to sabotage the housing law, to sabotage the legitimate majority and the solid agreement of the three left-wing groups.
“Mr. President, I deeply respect this institution, I find myself compelled to ask you for protection to reverse this situation, to restore democratic legitimacy to this Chamber,” the adviser said from the rostrum.
Zapico’s harsh accusations have provoked outrage in PP and Vox, whose spokespersons have requested to intervene. However, the president of the Chamber has not granted them the use of the floor and has opted to intervene himself to emphasize “that the government’s submission to scrutiny and control by the parliament is a cornerstone of the democratic system.”
Cofiño has also pointed out that, given "what corresponds with what appears to be an anomaly, what has happened in the processing of that housing bill, for the clarification of the facts and so that it has the consequences that may derive from it in its case, they have requested a report on the traceability of what has occurred, the facts, from the moment the bill has been registered in this Chamber up to today.
"Facts, not accounts. And on those facts we have asked the Body of Legal Counsels, I insist, to produce a calm but at the same time detailed legal report in light of Article 20 of the rules of this Chamber, which establishes the most fundamental obligation of members of parliament to attend its bodies. And that is what we are going to do so that at the next Bureau and in light of that report we will make the decisions that correspond," said Cofiño.
Content of the letter sent to the Presidency
In the letter delivered to the president of the Junta General, the councillor denounces the "institutional gravity" derived from the failure of the representatives of PP, Vox, and Foro to attend the meetings of the panel for the Housing Law, which has prevented the achievement of the essential quorum for the body to carry out its work.
Zapico argues that this behavior is equivalent to an "authentic institutional blow" and reproaches that "deliberate absence is used as an instrument to prevent the Parliament from being able to carry out its functions." In his view, political disagreement and opposition to a bill are legitimate in a democracy, but he insists that "it is not acceptable to use non-attendance to prevent parliamentary bodies from carrying out the functions they have been tasked with."
For this reason, he announces that he will stop attending the upcoming parliamentary control sessions "as long as the current circumstances persist." The councillor clarifies that his position does not seek to call into question the Chamber’s oversight work or to evade his obligation to give account, but rather to emphasize that said function requires "reciprocity, responsibility, and respect for the institution’s operation."
"I cannot accept as normal a situation in which parliamentary work is deliberately blocked and, however, it is intended to maintain an institutional normality that the facts themselves are denying," he states in the written document.
In the letter, Zapico likewise requests the “protection” of the president of the Junta General and urges him to act to safeguard the proper functioning of the institution and the dignity of its parliamentary bodies. He also warns of the precedent, in his opinion, that would be created if it were accepted as something usual that parliamentary groups can paralyze the activity of the Chamber by their absence.
“We cannot allow political confrontation to end by undermining the foundations of an institution that belongs to the entire body of the Asturian citizenry and whose preservation is a shared responsibility,” the councillor states in his letter.
In this context, Zapico links the blockage of the Housing Law to the difficulties in accessing housing that are recorded in Asturias and across the country, and argues that the processing of this rule “admits of no further delays,” given that it directly affects the living conditions of the citizenry. He also questions who the paralysis of the law really benefits and points out that, in a scenario in which certain intervention and regulation measures for the real estate market may affect consolidated economic interests, the blockage “in practice favors those who have an interest in that nothing changes.”