Yesterday, in the debate of the 4M elections for the Madrid Assembly, organized by the radio station La Ser, the fragility of democracy in Spain at this time was revealed.
The VOX candidate, the ultra-conservative party of the right, Ms. Rocío Monasterio, arrived with a whip on her tongue, to lash out at the other participants. She first she dumped her bile on Mr. ex-vice president Iglesias. In the name of a nice anti-democratic gesture she yelled at him to leave the debate, when he asked attendees to make an explicit "no to violence" statement about the recent attacks against him and his family.
During the first part of the debate, Mrs. Monasterio was dedicated to interrupting on multiple occasions, in a rude way, the other participants, showing her great antidemocratic and authoritarian disposition.
The moderator tried to channel the debate towards one with proposals, but her radio station did not show the clock to tell the time. Which was a great democratic failure, since the times were not distributed equitably. Totally incorrect practice in any electoral debate in Spain.
The candidate of the center party, Edmundo Bal, focused on the presentation of his proposals, but was constantly interrupted by the outbursts of Mr. Monasterio, plus the opportune interruptions of the candidate of the Socialist party, who did not agree to No way, that Mr. Bal achieved his goal of getting to the point.
Gabilondo tried to turn the electoral debate into a chat between friends, first. Later, since he was unable to make proposals, he began to criticize those of Mr. Bal, reminding him that in Madrid the budgets for this year had not been approved. Although he knew perfectly well, from the press, that the same day that these budgets were to be approved at 5pm, the president of the Community of Madrid, Mrs. Ayuso, closed the Assembly alleging a fear of an alleged motion of censure that could, supposedly, present her government partner, Ciudadanos.
Mrs. Ayuso, a candidate for the right-wing conservative party, PP, had refused to attend this debate. She is reluctant to this democratic practice. She is foul-mouthed, lacking in empathy with an authoritarian and totalitarian character, and little given to presenting data or proposals, in addition to being used to do what she feels like.
Later, Mr. Gabilondo called Citizens' contribution to the Madrid government “failed government”, to what is internationally considered “the miracle of Madrid”, but since he did not know how to explain why, the presenter left in suspense the turn of word from Mr. Bal, to make a convenient pause. Probably, by orders of her channel, due to the fact that the interventions of the candidate to favor, Mr. Gabilondo, did not favor him but rather the candidate of Ciudadanos, a party victim of takeovers on the right and left.
Behind the cameras, Mr. Gabilondo and Dr. Mónica García, from Más Madrid, reached an agreement not to continue the debate. Surely, they had weighed that success was being taken by Mr. Bal, which was not convenient for the left-wing bloc, since neither the two of them, nor Ms. Monasterio had managed to take him out of his boxes.
So, without listening to Mr. Bal's pleas in favor of speech and debate as a democratic instrument, the candidates on the left announced their abandonment of the debate. They managed to get the presenter to suspend it, preventing Mr. Bal from taking up his turn to speak.
Complete debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMai7UVSMgs&t=7629s
