The mayor of Benalmádena,Víctor Navas, has been sentenced to pay a fine for writing a message on his social media account encouraging people to vote for the PSOE on election day for the 2019 European and municipal elections. According to what Navas told this medium,he will appeal the ruling on the understanding that “the current Electoral Law dates from 1985, and has been out of date when it comes to assessing the new information channels that have emerged in recent decades, such as social networks.”
Three years ago, Navas published on his profile on the social network Twitter: “Good morning! Today, on election day, I ask you to vote for the PSOE in the European and municipal elections, to consolidate the growth and transformation that we began four years ago in Benalmádena and that we want to transfer to Europe. #Vote PSOE”. The publication was denounced by the PP for an alleged electoral crime, for which he has been sentenced today, although the sentence is not final since there is an appeal.
The general coordinator of PP of Málaga, José Ramón Carmona, just as he did in April last year, has returned today to request the resignation of the mayor of Benalmadena on understanding that apart from the legal burden of the conviction, “there is also a moral burden which says a lot about Navas and his behavior”. The popular underlines that Navas “cheated on the day in which one should show more democratic spirit and more elegance, and that, beyond the conviction, also has a very clear political reading ” and that “disqualifies him from the moral point of view, because if he did something like this on social networks to stay in the chair, what has he not done during these years at the head of the City Council?
For its part, the mayor of Benalmádena, -who explained what happened more than a year ago through his Twitter account, as you can see in the images- points out that “it is common for these situations to occur on election day” and in this sense, recalls that in the recent regional elections in Castilla y León “the PP itself asked for the vote and shared its program in various tweets during election day.”
Regarding the request for resignation by the general coordinator of the PP of Malaga, Navas believes that “it is a new excess of the PP, to which we have been accustomed lately” and highlights that “the sentence assesses an action that has no relation to our government work, nor does it constitute an indication of crimes such as embezzlement or prevarication. If they want to ask for resignations, there is no lack of figures in their own party (PP) who have incurred in a proven way and with firm sentencesin these crimes”.
