The tension between the two souls that coexist in Junts, the most pragmatic heir of the Convergència and the minority group led by Laura Borràs, has come to the surface again these days in Parliament. Twenty of the group’s 31 deputies have reprimanded their colleague Aurora Madaula, deputy and secretary of the board, similar to Borràs, for saying through sobs during a plenary event on women that, in addition to sexist violence, there is also “silent violence” from “comrades”. Anna Erra, President of Parliament, met with Madaula this Thursday and invited him to consider whether he should remain on the board given the lack of mutual trust, parliamentary sources say.
Erra, from the Junts’ pragmatic sector, took over the task from the party’s permanent commission, which met last Sunday to look into the case. The same sources claim that not only has Erra lost confidence in Madaula, but that this is also happening with much of the group and the party. The point is that Madaula is vice-president of Junts and the only politician in the Borràs group to maintain his institutional rank after the dismissal of Francesc de Dalmases for verbally harassing a journalist after an interview that she did not like . The party cannot force her to resign from office, so it is up to her to decide whether to continue or resign. At the last board meeting, the secretary intervened via video conference. The Junts leadership has submitted Madaula’s case to the party’s Guarantee Commission, headed by lawyer Magda Oranich, to make a decision.
In a women’s plenary session, the representative denounced the “silent violence” of her group members
The crisis erupted a week ago when ERC, PSC, Junts, Comuns and CUP were negotiating to agree on an institutional statement by the Speakers’ Committee ahead of the women’s plenary session scheduled to take place a day later on the eve of International Women’s Day. Elimination of violence against women. The text fell apart when neither the Socialists nor the Junts signed it. However, Madaula had initially signed the statement expressing parliament’s “concern” about the restrictions and violations of sexual and reproductive rights in Andorra, the only European country that bans abortion. The document called on the international community to resist the offensive of anti-gender groups and offered support for abortion activists in Andorra, in particular Vanessa Mendoza, an Andorran activist who is on trial for defamation in her country on the 4th denounced the rights violations at the United Nations.
Madaula had decided to sign the text, but the group claims he made the decision unilaterally and without consensus and withdrew support. MPs from the ERC, the House of Commons and the CUP appeared in Parliament to denounce Junts’ reversal of the document and accused the PSC of backing down when the “first and last name” was mentioned when discussing the Andorra case . Supported by MPs, Mendoza, who faces a €6,000 fine after learning that the text had been dropped, said: “Feminism makes people uncomfortable.” It is a feudal process: we used to be hanged because we were witches , and now because we were women who wanted rights. We speak the same language but don’t have the same rights. We come here to buy a human right and you go there [a Andorra] to buy perfumes and go skiing.”
The tension exploded a day later when the plenary protest on women took place. The differences of opinion that had been simmering for a long time – there were also some with a statement on Israel and Palestine – came to the fore in the plenary session when Madaula blurted out in a broken, almost crying voice, to the astonishment of his group and also other MPs: “When we speak: “We talk about sexist violence, physical violence, sexual assault violence and victims of feminism, but there is silent violence from male and female colleagues.”
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The speech was sprinkled into the amnesty negotiations. While the PSOE announced on Sunday that it would not travel to Switzerland this week – it will finally do so – the Junts permanent commission was dealing with the Madaula case, embedded in the battle between the two souls of the party. The party’s leadership, especially Secretary General Jordi Turull, was involved in solving the case. Borras already made it clear that he was on Madaula’s side when he stated in the video accompanying Madaula’s speech: “Parliamentary and media harassment is also sexist violence.” Some women suffer from it every day.”
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