Vox has again denied journalists from EL PAÍS and Cadena SER access to its headquarters on Calle del Bambú in Madrid to monitor the news on election night, in defiance of the mandates of the Central Electoral Board and the Provincial Electoral Board of Madrid, based on two Supreme Court rulings stressing that the media veto violates Article 20 of the Constitution (right to information). Ultra party officials have denied access to Grupo Prisa journalists on the grounds that they are not on the accredited list.
Both EL PAÍS and Cadena SER were accredited last Monday, minutes after Vox opened the registration period. By email, the Ultra party told this newspaper on Saturday afternoon and the radio station on Sunday morning that they were at capacity and unable to enter their headquarters. The truth is that the application used by Vox itself prevented filling in the form at full capacity, which was not the case at the time of the accreditation of EL PAÍS and Cadena SER.
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The Supreme Court has already warned the Ultra party that the capacity should not be used as a pretext to discriminate against the media on ideological grounds. At an informative breakfast organized by Europa Press last Tuesday, the leader of the party, Santiago Abascal, revealed the real reason for the veto: “The problem is very simple. It is unacceptable for a media company to publish an editorial saying that Vox needs to be banned, which the newspaper EL PAÍS did, and that later they want us to pretend that nothing happened, that they come to our headquarters, we give them breakfast, some pastries, how nice you are … No, if you ban us, they will understand that we are reacting in some way. That’s not going to change.” Thus, he acknowledged that the newspaper’s veto was due to an editorial published on November 6, 2019, in which he warned that the arguments used by the Vox boss in the debate between candidates for that month’s general election, many of whom were xenophobic and intolerant, required “all the alarm bells to be sounded”.
Unlike in the 2019 election campaign, when Vox already vetoed journalists, there are now two judgments from the controversial Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court in March 2021 condemning the discrimination against EL PAÍS and Cadena SER. The Central Electoral Bureau, in a resolution of June 28, warned that “every formation is obliged to comply with the decisions of both the Electoral Bureau and the Supreme Court’s Dispute Chamber regarding non-discrimination of the media during electoral periods.” For its part, on July 15, the Electoral Committee of the Province of Madrid called on Vox “to ensure the full exercise of the right of information towards all media and in particular the complainants EL PAÍS and Cadena SER”. EL PAÍS has warned Vox that it is violating both resolutions.
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