The president of the employer of the SMEs, Gerardo Cuerva, accepts the delegated vote in the elections that will be held soon, which will face him with the candidate supported by Antonio Garamendi ,. In a statement sent this Friday night, the Directorate of Cepyme specifies that the rules will govern, when the Board of Directors decided to eliminate the discussed delegated vote, by which a single voter can deposit the vote of several people. This movement caused an earthquake in the organization: the majority of the Executive Committee to reverse the change or threatened to legal actions. After a, Cuerva has accepted that in the elections the delegated vote is maintained.
“As for the elections, given its proximity and since the ratification of said change by the General Assembly has not been completed, although its application being fully executive, the President will propose to the next committee and the next Board of Directors that is applied, in an extraordinary way, the vote delegation as it was previously,” says Cepyme’s statement. “The objective,” the text continues, “is to give the electoral process that the approved modification can be interpreted as a decision adopted for its own benefit.”
“Likewise, due to the discrepancies manifested during the last weeks, the President calls for calm and the responsibility of all and manifests the need to resume the climate of unity and consensus that has prevailed in the organization in the last four years. At the same time, it considers it necessary to act with exemplarity and with the commitment that the defense of democracy prevails and under the only mission of representing and giving voice to the small and medium enterprises of Spain, ”adds the statement on Friday.
The fight against delegated vote was a effort of the Directorate of Cepyme, which sees in this instrument a democratic deficit. “We cannot accept that our organization is not governed by democratic principles. It is inconceivable. In the 21st century in democratic Europe they want to vote as with Franco. And the credit of organizations will be carried forward, ”said sources of the management in recent weeks. They are still convinced that the delegated vote is negative for the organization, but they take this step to relieve the tension of the last days. “It is necessary for organizations to also be set by democratic principles.”
Two legal reports commissioned by the Directorate of Cepyme, one of them signed, held the Cuerva position: they considered the statutory change legal and that the elimination of the delegated vote was key to democratizing the organization, an instrument that does not arise in the electoral processes of the patronal sister of Cepyme, CEOE and ATA. Then it transcended an EY reports that fought this position, commissioned by the employers of Madrid and the Metal and that defends the disability of the modification of the organization’s regulations.
“The president of Cepyme, Gerardo Cuerva, urges the organization to continue strengthening the internal democracy of the Confederation,” adds the statement this Friday.
This passage of Cuerva occurs only the name of the candidate that Garamendi supports to lead Cepyme: she is the president of the CEOE in Valladolid since 2014, Angela de Miguel. The president of CEOE wants a relay in the employer of SMEs, disagree with Cuerva for, among other reasons, to consider that he has a speech. Cuerva confirmed at the end of January.
