In April 2001 I was mandatorily retired by the Department of Education of the Galician Administration, (then leaded by General Franco’s former minister, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Fraga?wprov=sfti1), due to “serious mental issues.”
Some time later, on June 14th, 2006, I legalized and registered in the Political Parties Registry of the Spanish Ministry of Interior a Galician Independence Party, the UDNG (in English: Union for a Democratic Nation at Galiza; according to the Portuguese-oriented Galician Language Normative we use: Uniom por umha Democracia Nacional Galega). It’s organic structure is based, as you will see, if you read the text, in the structures of the Basque Nationalist Party, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Nationalist_Party?wprov=sfti1 , (in Spanish: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Nacionalista_Vasco . References in the text below are made to EAJ-PNV) .The main stuff starts under 1.2. PURPOSES (or “OBJECTIVES”), which are just mine own.
From its chapter 2 (on affiliation) ahead (not the part I translate here, that is, 1.2. PURPOSES or “OBJECTIVES”), these statutes of UDNG, in the application of UDNG’s principle of considering the transfer of suitable models a valid method of management, correspond point by point, limiting themselves to a reordering of some parts, and some other minor arrangements, to the body (Title I – Title XIV) of the national statutes of the EAJ-PNV, by an act of generosity of the EAJ-PNV, which, asked about the possibility of using this text, responded, through one of the responsible of its statutory area, Amaia Ibarguen, that the text lacked any copyright and could be used; and follow, also by indications of this responsible for the EAJ-PNV statutory area, the text ratified at the 4th General Assembly of the EAJ-PNV held January 17 and 18, 2004 at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, the most recent version on the date these lines are composed (UDNG was registered in the Political Parties Registry of the Spanish Ministry of Interior on June 14th, 2006) . U.D.N.G. thanks EAJ-PNV (and Amaia Ibarguen) for the availability of this documentation and would like it to be the beginning of a collaboration in this and other areas with this party and others with similar ideological and organizational lines. (Regarding the age of affiliation in the party and the organization of the youth branch of this, the statutes of UDNG follow the version immediately prior to the 2004 Statutes of EAJ-PNV (Statutes 2000) …
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1.1. DENOMINATION:
Under Article 6 of the Spanish Constitution and Organic Law 6/2002, of June 27, of Political Parties (BOE No. 154, of June 28, 2002), www.boe.es/buscar/pdf/2002/BOE-A-2002-12756-consolidado.pdf , the Political Party called “Unióm por umha Democracia Nacional Galega ” is formed, whose acronym is UDNG, being the symbol of the party a silhouette of Galiza and, inscribed in it, an unfolded book …
1.2. PURPOSES:
The “Unión por umha Galega National Democracy” (UDNG) (Union for a Democratic Nation at Galiza) is a national political party, created to contribute by democratic means to the determination of Galician politics, the politics of other historical nationalities, with which it hopes to enter into a relationship of exchange of ideas and projects, and of Spain; and it is proposed to increase the formation of the political will of the citizens, and to promote their participation in the institutions according to the following purposes:
1º Without defining its economic model as communist, UDNG is in agreement with the entire Galician left-wing independence movement about the fact that Galicia is experiencing a complicated social situation, characterized by growing social exclusion, and a political management that only takes into account the interests of a limited sector of the population.
2º UDNG considers it necessary to put at the service of oriented to the common good politics valid management methodologies that have already proven their effectiveness for this purpose in other countries and in other administrations which it seems appropriate to establish as a model, because the methods applied so far seem terribly imperfect. In this sense, for instance, it would be in favor of the application to the administration, and also to the Galician economic and budgetary policy, both at national and local level, of what could be called a “compared administrative management” or a “compared economy.” UDNG thinks that the transfer of abstract models, if carried out in an adequate and careful way, may be a valid method. UDNG would be in favor of the majority of proposals for political or social-political intervention, including legislative ones, to be supported by an apparatus of references indicating where they were applied, by whom, with what results, and bibliography, for instance.
UDNG also considers it very likely that, even within its own framework, a good part of the political and administrative management in Galicia and the Spanish State is deficient, that is, not only is it inserted, due to a prolonged neglect in an inadequate legal and regulatory framework, but also gives up applying many of the appropriate rules and laws that should regulate it.
Regarding this, UDNG believes that a State is contained in its laws and, consequently, there must be an effort to ensure that these are adequate, are integrated into an adequate system and are drafted with clarity, so that the creation of a stable legislative corpus, able to effectively regulate political, social and economic activity in all its orders, is possible
UDNG would advocate, even, for an analysis and a judicious review of everything legislated up to the present, and the creation of devices that make possible the correction of situations that do not seem to adapt to these standards. It would also consider it a priority to change the Regulations of the Galician Parliament and other institutions.
3º UDNG thinks that thirty years after the end of General Franco’s dictatorship, the implementation of the party system presents serious deficiencies in Galicia and, probably, the rest of the Spanish State. It is not based on a real affiliation, or on contrasted organizational structures, and puts its management at the service of the most insolent forms of the capitalist economic system. Considers it urgent to gather, organize and publish information in this regard with a view to opening a reflection on the functioning regime of the parties in the Spanish state, and perhaps also its legal revision.
For UDNG the real basis of the existence of a party are not the electoral results, but the affiliation – which will always be municipal, id est, local – and the integration of this into supra-local participatory structures in an ascending order (municipality, territory, nation) articulated in such a way as to offer the greatest guarantees for democratic decision making. Political formation, information and communication should also be pillars of party activity.
It is the organizational model, taken from EAJ-PNV, the Basque Nationalist Party, which U.D.N.G. presents, and wants to put at the service of the reality of Galicia and its own ends.
4º UDNG believes that the concepts of “ETHICS”, “DEMOCRACY” and “SOCIAL WELFARE” are the foundation (in the last case the objective) of political action, and makes a decision in order that these concepts, understood in a way as close as possible to their possible original sense, regulate political action in Galician territory and from Galicia also model the policy of the Spanish State.
UDNG understands ethics as a search for the best, politically with a clear social dimension, and a desire for excellence that must shape the end and also characterize the means.
UDNG also understands that the excellent goal, (which usually has to be determined among a plurality of options), may not always coincide with the immediate popular demands, nor can be determined with speed, but must be described and constituted as an object of dialogue, of detailed analysis in a plurality of detailed analyzes and, ultimately, of a thorough democratic decision. Ideas can be altered in the process. But the honesty of the exchange, the exhaustiveness, the clarity and the publicity of the analyzes, the intellectual honesty with which, among all the possible options, the purpose is chosen in each order according to its social scope and to the most lasting principles of the time, and the cleanliness of decision mechanisms, would be the characteristic of a method to combine the notions of ethics and democracy.
The knowledge in the present must, be gathered from experts and, in this sense, the work of government is, also, at the same time a work of search and of disclosure.
The politician is obliged to promote and manage democratic decisions that will be binding, in other words, to whose execution he will be forced, but a good part of the practice of power is also configured as one of the modalities of academic work, and politicians must also try to mediate between an inventory of proven good theories and procedures and the population in general, abiding by the decisions of the latter.
None of this is clear in the political trajectory of Galicia, in which the parties exercise their work with an opaque operation to the citizenship, structures that are confusing and lack any guarantees, and without a significant base of affiliates, and whose recent history resembles a chain of more or less ad hoc measures, not integrated into an overall vision, nor based on a powerful theory that explains how they have been chosen, and have not been object of dialogue and persuasion either, nor a real result of the will of the people.
This is what UDNG wants to contribute to remedy, proposing to the citizenship and trying to apply and develop a basic ideology, an organizational method and management principles, if we had enough support.
As a consequence of these first three points we also consider a purpose to promote the parliamentary political life in accordance with these criteria (social orientation, administrative optimization, control of the mechanisms of democratic guarantees of the party activity) and the purposes indicated below, and the local policies too, doing everything possible to really enter the Institutions.
5º UDNG wants to contribute to build, on the bases expressed in the previous points, ethics, democracy, socialism, and research of political and administrative excellence (also legal and normative excellence), an economic, social, sanitary, administrative, environmental consensus, that could affect all the usual aspects of governments and could establish a lasting order in the Galician Administration. UDNG’s desire is to help to put this into practice; find and prepare documentation and usable material for this; and apply them.
6º UDNG is a secular and socialist party, which undertakes under no circumstances to enter into a coalition with conservative formations, neither at a national level, nor at a municipal or local level, nor to integrate into them, nor to integrate people who do not fully commit themselves to the purposes that UDNG presents.
UDNG would like, however, to contribute to the formation of progressive governments, with a strong social component, actively involved in the pursuit of excellence, as we conceive it.
In these coalitions, UDNG’s purpose would be, besides the suggestion and supervision of a certain direction, social communication and social mobilization.
7º UDNG considers the fight (police, judicial, mediatic fight) against economic, political and social corruption and its different social manifestations, an objective.
8º Other signs of identity the achievement of which can also become a purpose:
(a) UDNG is in favor of the creation of a social project, probably linked to what is being considered a “Welfare State”, characterized, on the one hand, by basic public services (Health, Education, Law) of quality for all and endowed with the corresponding “security systems” and, on the other, by systems of guarantees aimed at surviving with dignity – for the most unprotected layers (young unemployed, elderly with poor incomes, drug addicts, people excluded from the system in general) -, of course also with a determined integrating will.
UDNG would also like to create, under the guidance of experts, a prosperity project for Galician territory based as far as possible on its own resources, respectful of the environment and durable.
(b) UDNG considers that political demands are more important than linguistic claims or cultural claims, but, given the historical and cultural circumstances of Galicia, is in favor of a priority use of Galician Language in Galicia and monolingualism or an stage as close as possible to monolingualism, and has the will to design, manage and implement a full-time linguistic normalization project within a maximum period of 5 years. In the controversy about Galician Language normatives, U.D.N.G. is positioned in reintegrationism, Reintegrationism – Wikipedia
With independence of the above, UDNG considers that argumentation, regardless of the language in which it is issued, is the only basis for political action, and that only quality arguments should correspond to the policy. The inaccuracies, intoxication and ad personam arguments must be excluded from the political debate and turned into an object of responsibility. Language should not be used as a criterion to invalidate a quality argument.
(c) UDNG is in favor of the minimum possible environmental intervention. It does not believe that there are any real conflicts between this minimalist position with respect to the environment and the economic benefit or the creation of jobs, and, if there was one, UDNG would always be on the side of the environment.
(d) UDNG considers education a priority and would like to create a new model, as singular and distinct from that that of rest of the State as would seem necessary and possible, and, in the meantime, provide all the possible guarantees to the current one. It also believes that there are more possibilities than those contemplated. UDNG estimates that adult education is being neglected in Galicia alarmingly.
(e) On an organizational level, after considering other assumptions, UDNG makes the organizational principles explicit in the statutes of EAJ- P.N.V. in each of the successive levels of action (municipal or local, territorial and national) UDNG’s own principles. :
UDNG is a UNIQUE and ONLY PARTY that:
i) is organized as an assembly-type party, facilitating the real participation of its members in decision-making and in putting into practice the purposes or objectives that characterize UDNG as a political party.
ii) Guarantees at all times respect to the decision-making competence level that corresponds to the municipal and territorial level organizations.
iii) Structures its internal organs on the base of a separation of powers or functions.
iv) Set up its executives as collegiate management bodies.
v) Assumes the principles of separation of internal and external charges (charges in the party and public political charges), of non-accumulation of power and of non-confusion between the figure of the controller and that of the one to be controlled.
vi) Acknowledges that the competent bodies for the election of an internal or public position are also entitled to revoke their prior election at any time.
Addendum.-
UDNG esteems that the debate around the “national question” is being subject to a long and serious manipulation.
The historic Galicianism, (or “Galleguism,”) has believed that the development of Galicia demands its real self-determination and has advocated the free integration of Galicia into a federal state, freely formed by Portugal, the other two historical nationalities (The Basque Country and Catalonia), and the rest of the Spanish territory- which would mean very important changes in the structure of the Spanish State.
The Dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, interrupting by means of a military rebellion that gave rise to a civil war, the natural evolution of the republican structures, if not “federal”, explicitly “federable,” aborted by force all hope of reaching this claim.
Along with the previous purposes, UDNG would like to develop a line of theoretical political action (studies and projects) and practical policy (contacts, conferences) regarding this possible evolution of political structures in the Iberian Peninsula, also linked with studies on its economic viability and creation of a stream of opinion about it.
UDNG conceives this in purely political terms, renouncing in advance any violent action.
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