The Más Madrid guarantee committee annuls the dismissal of Arenillas as a member of the party’s Regional Table | Madrid News

The guarantee committee of Más Madrid has decided to annul the decision of the party leadership to dismiss Loreto Arenillas as a member of the party’s Regional Table as a result of the Iñigo Errejón case, according to a resolution of December 10 to which EL PAÍS has had access. A decision that the management accepts, since it understands that, in reality, it had never been dismissed from that conclave. Arenillas, in any case, remains outside the executive or coordinating team, and does not recover the coordination portfolio either.

On October 25, after it was learned that Errejón had left politics due to an anonymous complaint of harassment posted on networks, which was later followed by another registered with the police by the actress and presenter Elisa Mouliaá, Mónica García, Manuela Bergerot and Rita Maestre accused the politician’s former chief of staff to “minimize” the first case and decided to remove her “from all her internal positions due to loss of trust.” Arenillas denied the accusation of trying to dilute the controversy, and complained to the internal body when he understood that his dismissal as part of the Regional Board of the organization, and of the executive, in addition to being responsible for the coordination portfolio, did not conform to the statutes. The guarantees committee has now partially agreed with her, as it establishes that she is still part of the Regional Board, and that she was not given the opportunity to defend herself. However, it rejects, “due to lack of competence”, her request to clarify that her fundamental rights have been violated, and to clarify whether the management can demand her deputy’s certificate.

“The Coordinating Team can under no circumstances expel a member of the Regional Board, which has direct democratic legitimacy,” that document reads. “To accept this would be to violate the democratic principle and institutionalize a flagrant misuse of power,” he warns. “Thus, the members of the Regional Board can only be dismissed due to the end of their ordinary mandate or as a consequence of a very serious sanction (art. 54.4 c of the Statutes), after the opening of the appropriate disciplinary file regulated in Chapter VI of the Statutes, which in this case, to date, has not occurred,” he adds. “For this reason, it must be stated that the dismissal of the appellant as a member of the Regional Board violates the Statutes, and the appeal must be upheld at this point.”

When consulted by this newspaper, a member of the party leadership shares the meaning of the ruling, although he understands that it is based on confusion.

“Guarantees makes an orthodox interpretation, very close to the literality of the statement [de destitución]in which we stated that she was dismissed from all her positions,” he explains. “What now clarifies is that he is still a member of the Regional Board. And we fully agree. It does not go in a direction that is contradictory to the decisions made, because it has not been kicked out from there, nor could it be kicked out. He is an elected member and it is impossible.”

But it is not the only call for attention that the internal body makes against the actions of García, Bergerot and Maestre, the party coordinators. The guarantees committee also does not support that Arenillas was not given a hearing to defend his actions.

“This Guarantees Committee must reproach the decision to publish the termination agreement immediately after its adoption (knowing the unique media relevance it had and the irreversible personal damage it could cause),” states the organization’s resolution. “The decision to make public the termination agreement without having first provided an adequate and sufficient space in which the reasons for it could be explained to the affected party, and in which she could allege what she considered appropriate, cannot be accepted by the party. of this Committee,” he emphasizes. “Although this Guarantees Committee is aware of the difficulties that currently exist in managing dissent in politics in a manner contrary to that determined by the “media agenda”, we believe that our party cannot renounce this.”

Arenillas promised to leave her record as a deputy in the Madrid Assembly on the same day that it was decided to remove her from her internal positions (October 25). However, after almost two months, he remains in the seat, and also in the Más Madrid parliamentary group, despite the fact that he has not set foot in the regional Parliament again due to being on medical leave.

In the meantime, her still party has removed her as spokesperson for the women’s commission, and has changed her location in the plenary sessions, to a remote seat, so that the gap left by her absence on the bench is less noticeable.

From their point of view, Arenillas has been converted into a firewall to prevent the crisis unleashed by the Errejón case climb to the noble offices of your training. “A scapegoat,” he described. Thus, the deputy already assured in separate statements published on October 25 and 28 on her social networks that in June 2023, when she learned of a first complaint of harassment against Errejón, she transmitted it to the party’s head of feminism and the secretary of organization. The first was Cristina Castillo. The second, Manuela Bergerot, who since the departure of Mónica García to the Ministry of Health is the visible face of Más Madrid in the Assembly, where she serves as spokesperson and leader of the opposition to the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

“Maybe I didn’t do enough, but far from hiding or covering up information, I reported,” Arenillas stated in one of his statements. “The party leadership did not consider the facts relevant to raise them to higher bodies, nor make them public, nor activate the procedures of our statutes and internal rules and, later, the complaint on networks disappeared and no one considered that that episode was not [sic] It required further action,” he added. “Given the facts that led to the resignation of Íñigo Errejón, that decision was a mistake. My sincerest apologies to that woman. I want to reiterate that I was completely unaware of the testimonies and attacks on women that are appearing these days,” he continued. “I’m in schock (…)”.

From the first moment, Errejón’s former chief of staff claimed to be a victim of “an abuse of authority”; He argued that by statute the leaders of the group (Bergerot, Maestre and García) did not have the authority to remove his positions or demand the minutes; and denied the accusation against her: that she mediated with the complainant in the first case to prevent it from becoming more publicly known. Now the guarantee committee of Más Madrid partially agrees with him.