Sílvia Orriols, mayor of Ripoll (Girona) and leader of Aliança Catalana, tried yesterday to put an end to the controversy sparked by the hiring of one of her daughters as an interim Local Police officer, through a direct selection process. “Anyone who has the slightest doubt, challenge it,” challenged the ultra-independentist leader defiantly, in a media briefing without questions. The appointment decree of her eldest daughter, Guinadell Orriols, justifies “maximum urgency” due to the “unpostponable need” to guarantee the security of the municipality.
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A rush that contrasts with the decision to freeze the call for competitive exams in that same force for six months, which had been planned last January. That process was reactivated on the same day as the fast-track one and the mayor’s daughter is also one of the candidates.
Orriols, whose discourse revolves around the idea that she cannot influence her daughter’s aspirations either positively or negatively, denied on Wednesday the existence of a conflict of interest. She does not see it either in the selection process, from which she insists she stayed out, nor in the fact that since the 17th her daughter has been part of a force that depends on the Security council, which the mayor also holds. Hence her rejection of the proposal from the Junts per Catalunya municipal group that she delegate that portfolio to another councilor.
The relationship between crime and immigration is one of the central elements of AC’s ideology, hence the control and visibility that Orriols wants to give to the police force, as opposed to the Mossos outside her control. The local police has 17 officers and Ripoll has about 10,600 residents. The ratio, therefore, fits the standard of 1.5 officers per 1,000 inhabitants pointed out by the federations of municipalities.
The position that finally went to the mayor’s 19-year-old daughter was granted through an emergency procedure, justified by what is considered an “understaffing” that endangers maintaining citizen security, according to the decrees of the file. In last Monday’s plenary session, the municipal secretary, Gerard Soldevila, even recalled that the process could have been simplified due to that “urgency.” The use of the adjective has legal implications, as it typifies the conditions of the processes. While the appointment decree speaks of “maximum urgency,” the bases refer to “urgency.”
On January 8, the City Council approved the bases for competitive exams for a civil servant position in that force. However, the call came six months later, on June 11, after its publication in the Official Bulletin of the Province of Girona. It is precisely the same day the other selection process that the mayor’s daughter finally won was launched. The AC leader did not explain the reason for the delay in the exams but said that the urgency of having an interim responded to the force’s request due to lack of personnel to cover absences and vacations.
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The list of candidates who passed the first cut of the exam was known on July 22, four days after the daughter of the AC leader was appointed interim officer by decree. The process for the civil servant position, in which having police experience is scored, is pending the appointment of the tribunal that will examine the tests and must decide among nine competitors. Guinadell Orriols, according to what this newspaper has verified, is on that list.
The City Council declined to explain whether they will apply any extra measure in this case to prevent the current controversy from extending to the other procedure, in which the Generalitat must be on the tribunal. Although Orriols insists she has been neutral, yesterday she did accept the appointment of the tribunal that awarded the position to her daughter, through a decree published seven days after the application deadline closed. That said, the AC leader shields herself by saying she merely validated a technical proposal.
“This matter is not about a daughter; it is about a mayor,” said the Junts leader in Ripoll, Ferran Raigon. “When a direct relative becomes part of a municipal force for which the mayor is the highest political authority, it is essential to adopt all necessary measures to guarantee maximum impartiality and institutional exemplarity,” he said to argue his proposal to Orriols to delegate security powers to another councilor. Raigon emphasized that his party “in no way questions the professionalism, capacity, or merits of the new officer.”
From the ERC ranks, its national spokesperson, Isaac Albert, has emphasized Orriols’ contradictions, in whose parliamentary interventions it is common to refer to how traditional parties impose loyal people in positions of responsibility in the Administration. “If those are the ones who champion the new politics, cleanliness in management, we are served,” Albert ironized.
“Anyone who has the slightest doubt, challenge it,” the ultra leader challenged the opposition in her municipality. Orriols accused, especially Junts, of “spreading rumors” regarding the assignment of the position to her daughter, which she sees as an attempt to strike her in her particular competition in the independentist right-wing space. In fact, during last Monday’s plenary, the mayor responded to Raigon with a personal attack: “If he is so clean in this regard, how is it that he asked to do an internship in a municipal facility in Ripoll? Did I deny it because he is a councilor?”
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