Beatriz Retuerta
Guadalajara (EFE)
The mayoress of Santiuste, Victoria Cuervo, explains to EFE that once the open council enters into force “all the residents on the census will be councilors, they will have a voice and vote in the decisions of the plenary session, with only the vote of the quality mayor.”
Cuervo points out that “historically we have always had an open council,” a form of government that “worked very well” in this small town in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, until the legislation was changed and they became a City Hall.
Currently, the corporation has a mayoress (independent) and two councilors, one from the PP and the other from the PSOE, but from the next elections in May they will regain their status as an open council.
Direct participatory democracy replaces representative democracy
The essential characteristic of this form of organization and government is the replacement of representative democracy, exercised by the councilors who are elected by the residents of the municipality, by direct participatory democracy.
With the open council formula, it is the citizens themselves and not their representatives who make up the essential collegiate body of the local entity: the neighborhood assembly.
Victoria Cuervo has been mayor for eight years and has indicated that the plenary session of the City Council approved requesting to return to an open council, unanimously, in the session held on April 2, 2019, so that once achieved “we expand democracy further if possible ”.
“The reason why the legislation changed is because in many small towns it was very difficult to reach a quorum, because at least a third of the people who make up the plenary session, that is, the mayor and all the residents, are needed to make the ordinary quarterly plenary sessions”, explains Cuervo.
“But here, being an open council, no plenary session was suspended for not having a quorum; However, three have been suspended in this legislature due to the impossibility of agreeing on a date ”, he explained.
The population of Santiuste, “extremely participatory”
The mayoress has recognized that the population of her municipality is “extremely participatory and there has always been a lot of participation. What’s more, we have always noticed a laziness in participation as a result of this modification because they could no longer intervene nor did their voice count.
And he added that although one might think otherwise, the older population of Santiuste “is very active and they infect each other by participating and doing things for their people.”
An example of what the modification of the City Council entails is that “when a representative of the Corporation is needed, for example, as a member in the commonwealth, any registered neighbor can go”.
Cuervo has also stressed that “the reality is that participating in decisions makes people more responsible” and added that on occasions they have made wrong decisions and the error has been accepted by everyone, without criticizing the mayor.
The figure of the open council is not interesting for the auditors, who must reach an agreement with all the residents and not only with the mayor and the councilors, nor for the parties, who “lose” councilors for the benefit of the residents.
However, the participatory commitment of the residents of this municipality has made them recover a figure of government with which to exercise the maxim of democracy: defend the sovereignty of the people and their right to elect and control their rulers.
