First victory for the candidate for the Cercle d’Economia elections, Rosa Cañadas. This Thursday, the board of directors of the entity – in which the other pre-candidate, Jaume Guardiola, is not present, after his resignation – decided not to accept the vote of the new partners and to close the electoral roll. Although the statutes do not establish a minimum period of seniority to be able to vote, the members of the board of directors chose not to accept them. Sources from Guardiola’s candidacy said that if the board had approved it, it seemed fine to them.
This week alone, nearly a hundred new registrations had been requested. As an election is something unprecedented in the case of the Cercle, it is unknown how many of the around 1,300 members will exercise their right to vote, but it is considered that a flood of one hundred new registrations would completely affect the result of the elections.
Sources close to the Cercle board of directors said that although initially the members of the organization opted for those votes to count, after the internal debate they decided to leave them out so as not to damage the institution. The formula that has been followed is that at Thursday’s meeting the hundred new partners were not validated, so they will not be full members until a future meeting approves them. This system prevents them from being members before the next electoral consultation, on July 12, since the census was closed this Tuesday.
Regarding the registrations that have remained to be validated, it is argued that the decision be postponed due to “the impossibility of verifying with full guarantees the fulfillment of the requirements” in view of “the high number of requests for admission of partners presented”, explains the Cercle in a statement sent this Friday.
The board that was held this Thursday electronically also gave the go-ahead for the elections to be held on July 12. The executives also agreed that guarantees prior to the call for elections cannot be accepted. Some of the candidacies –such as Guardiola’s continuityist– had already obtained a large part of the aforementioned guarantees. This Thursday a single form and form was agreed for everyone.
The meeting of the board takes place after the two pre-candidates met on Tuesday at the headquarters of the organization in Barcelona to agree on some fringes of the elections. Cañadas proposed that the membership census be closed and that new registrations with the right to vote not be accepted. Guardiola’s candidacy signaled that they would accept whatever the board approved. It’s the same comment they made last night. “The electoral census has been closed, both in registrations and in cancellations; and the board of directors has commissioned an external advisor to certify in the coming days that all partners included in the census with electoral rights are up to date with its obligations, especially that of the payment of the social contribution”, is pointed out in the statement published this Friday. Becoming a member of the Cercle is very cheap (250 euros per year), although the first exercise costs 385 euros.
Jaume Guardiola plans to present his candidacy on May 17. There is a lot of uncertainty about the outcome of the contest, as it is the first time in more than sixty years of life that an election has been held.
The electoral regulation establishes that at least two months before the expiration of the three-year mandate, on July 24 in this case, the elections must be called. The statutes dedicate less than two lines to regulate the elections: “Any partner can be represented in the general assembly by another partner. This representation must be conferred in writing and on a special basis for each meeting”. Until now, the vast majority did not attend the assembly in which the new president was voted on.
The statutes of the Cercle d’Economia were approved in 2011, when its president was José Manuel Lara, president of Planeta; long after its foundation, in 1958, and its legalization, ten years later.
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