Practical guide to follow a constitution of the decisive Cortes

This Thursday the XV legislature begins with the constitution of the Cortes Generales, three weeks after the elections have been held. All eyes are on the composition of the Congress Table and on who will hold its presidency. The two most voted parties, PP and PSOE, have proposed their candidates: the popular Cuca Gamarra and the socialist Francina Armengol, respectively. One of them could be voted as the next president of the lower house by the 350 parliamentarians who came out of the polls on 23-J. The session begins at ten in the morning, and after weeks of discreet negotiations, the two blocks arrive tied and without a clear result. On the one hand, the PSOE aspires to add to its 121 deputies the 31 of Sumar; the 7 of CKD; the 6 of EH Bildu; the 5 from the PNV and the deputy from the BNG. All of them add up to 171. The PP, for its part, wants to join its 137 seats with the 33 of Vox and the UPN seat, with which they also reach 171. To break the tie, the only deputy from Canarian Coalition, Cristina Valido, and, especially, the seven deputies of Junts, the party of the fugitive former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, whose executive meets early this Thursday morning to decide the direction of their vote.

Junts meets first thing in the morning

Despite having lost one seat, and getting 130,000 fewer votes than four years ago, Junts will be one of the decisive parties of the legislature that begins this Thursday. First thing in the morning, Puigdemont’s party meets its executive to decide what the seven deputies obtained by the independentistas will vote for. Junts’ options are to bet on one of the candidates of the main parties, or present its own candidacy for the presidency of Congress. Puigdemont already warned on Wednesday that the agreement was not closed, and demanded from the PSOE and Sumar “verifiable facts” before “committing” the vote of his party.

Constitution the old Bureau

Starting at 10 o’clock, the 350 elected deputies will meet in Congress. To direct the first session of the XV legislature, an age table is formed, which will be chaired by the oldest deputy. In this case, it would correspond to the Socialist deputy Cristina Narbona, 72, who will be attended as secretaries by the youngest deputies in the Chamber, Ada Santana Aguilera, 25, and Ferrán Verdejo Vicente, 26. The Table of age will be clearly socialist, since the three deputies are members of the PSOE. The presidency of the age table is the one that declares the session open. Later, one of the secretaries will read out loud the Royal Decree of convocation, as well as the elected deputies and, if any, the contentious-electoral appeals filed, indicating those deputies that could be affected by its resolution.

Election of the President of Congress

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Once all the elected deputies have been appointed, the nine members that make up the Bureau will be elected: a president, four vice-presidents and four secretaries. In the first place, the person who will preside over the highest body of Parliament will be chosen. The vote to elect the president of the Board will be secret and in person in a ballot box. Each party must propose a candidate, and then the 350 deputies of the Chamber will introduce a ballot with the name of one of the candidates. If none of the proposed persons obtains an absolute majority (176 deputies), the vote will be repeated, but this time between the two candidates with the most votes in the previous round. If the tie continues, the voting will be repeated until it is broken.

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The four vice-presidencies are then elected in a single vote. Each deputy will write a single name of those proposed for the position, and those who receive the most votes will be elected, in order. In this way, the first will occupy the first vice-presidency, and so on. With the same system the four secretariats are chosen. If there is a tie, successive votes will be held between the candidates equal in votes until it is broken.

Why is the Table of Congress important?

The Table has two basic functions: to organize the economic and human resources of the Parliament, and to regulate the political activity of the groups that make up the Chamber. The control of the Bureau is politically relevant, since, among other things, it decides the calendar of the legislative initiatives promoted —according to the regulations—, and can facilitate or hinder the processing of laws.

In addition, the President of Congress is the third institution of the State, only below the King and the President of the Government. One of his functions is to convene the investiture plenary session, after the King’s round of consultations with the political groups. The Constitution does not set a deadline for the head of state to propose a candidate, but once the president of Congress convenes the plenary session, the electoral clock is activated. If no candidate obtains the confidence of the Chamber, the Cortes will be automatically dissolved two months after the first investiture vote, according to article 99.5 of the Constitution.

compliance with the constitution

Once the Board has been constituted, its members must abide by the Constitution. Then, they will call each of the deputies in alphabetical order, who from their seat and out loud must also swear or promise to comply with the Magna Carta. Finally, the acting members of the Government will do so.

The formula to abide by the Constitution has become one of the moments that has generated the most controversy in recent years. Some deputies have used alternative forms to the classic “yes, I swear” or “yes, I promise”, introducing ideological or political claims. In 2019, he came to promise “for the Catalan republic”, like the ERC deputy Gabriel Rufián; “for social rights”, like some deputies of Podemos, or for “the whole planet”, like the former environmental deputy Juan López Uralde. After an appeal filed by eight PP deputies, the Constitutional Court endorsed the constitutionality of these formulas in June of this year.

The session is over

Finally, the presidency of the Congress will declare the Chamber constituted and will adjourn the session, and will notify the King, the Senate and the Government. From that moment on, the head of state will have to meet with the leaders of the parties in Congress and negotiations will begin to choose the next president of the Government.

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