Chapter 318: Recommended Election System

Gao Da stayed in Barcelona for two days before leaving to inspect other cities.

As the King of Spain, Gao Da owns more palaces in Spain than any other noble. In addition to the largest, the Madrid Palace, Gao Da possesses a vast number of royal palaces, castles, and estates across Spain, so he never has to worry about accommodation anywhere.

In Barcelona, Gao Da also owns a royal palace of modest size. Although it is not very large, it is more than enough to house the entire royal family.

There are many buildings similar to the Barcelona royal palace throughout Spain; these were built by rulers throughout Spanish history and have now all become Gao Da's private property.

Just how exaggerated is the number of palaces Gao Da owns? In the vicinity of Madrid alone, not counting the Madrid Palace, Gao Da still owns one temporary palace, two castles, and two estates.

These more secluded castles and palaces are the private residences of royal family members, allowing for greater protection of their privacy.

Although the scale and luxury of the Madrid Palace are unparalleled in Spain, because it is located in the center of Madrid, privacy cannot be well guaranteed.

Things that happen in the royal palace easily spread throughout Madrid, which is unfavorable for members of the royal family, so some more remote estates and castles provide them with more options.

Heading west from Barcelona, Gao Da arrived successively at Zaragoza, the capital of the Aragon region; Pamplona, the capital of the Navarre region; Oviedo, the capital of the Asturias region; and Santiago, the capital of the Galicia region. Afterward, he took a train through the Castile-Leon region, stayed in its capital, Valladolid, for half a day, and then returned to the capital, Madrid.

After this round of inspections, Gao Da had set foot in most of Spain's administrative districts. Except for the overseas Balearic and Canary Islands, as well as the Extremadura and Andalusia regions, all of Spain's administrative divisions were within the scope of Gao Da's inspection.

The entire inspection lasted for more than a month and achieved relatively good results. For regions with significant changes like Barcelona, Navarre, and Asturias, the merger and reorganization plans for the regional governments were already more than half complete.

Among them, the most noteworthy were the governments of the Navarre region and the Asturias region.

Both of these regions were formed by the merger of two or three large districts, so the regional governments naturally had to integrate the original three district governments.

This included the regional parliaments of these two regions, which also had to merge the parliaments of the other districts; this was a quite complex task.

The positions of regional government officials and the parliamentary seats in the regional parliaments were both headaches for each region.

These problems also hindered the progress of the administrative division reform. Only after Gao Da personally visited these regions and handled the issues based on their specific problems could the political division reforms proceed smoothly.

First was the Navarre region, formed by the merger of three large districts; the formation of its regional government and regional parliament was the most difficult.

Among the three large districts that made up the Navarre region, two were districts where Basques gathered. According to common sense, most of the Navarre regional government officials should have been Basque, and the same should have applied to the regional parliament.

But clearly, since the Navarre region was named Navarre rather than Basque, it naturally meant that the Spanish government did not want the Basques to obtain too many parliamentary seats.

The disputes between the local Basques and the Spaniards also caused the formation of the Navarre regional government and regional parliament to fall into a stalemate, and the merger of the three large districts therefore became quite slow.

After Gao Da arrived in Pamplona, the capital of the Navarre region, he not only personally inquired about the formation of the regional government and parliament but also handled some of the problems encountered during the process.

For example, the issue of parliamentary seats. The newly merged Navarre region would not fully absorb the members of the original three large districts; instead, it would hold new parliamentary elections throughout the entire region to elect new members for the Navarre regional parliament.

As for the Navarre regional government officials, they would also be primarily composed of the original Navarre large district government officials. The district heads of the Basque large district and the La Rioja large district would temporarily serve as deputy governors of the Navarre region, awaiting relevant personnel changes during the next gubernatorial election.

For the Basques, such an arrangement by Gao Da was definitely a nightmare. But the problem was that because Gao Da was personally presiding over the matter, it was difficult for them to resist such an arrangement.

Gao Da's arrangement was not without reason for targeting the Basques.

The merged Navarre region had a population of 1. 1 million, of which fewer than 700, 00 were Basque.

With the Basques not even making up half the population, what reason did they have to demand a majority of the parliamentary seats? Moreover, the name of the new region was Navarre, so it was only natural for the regional government to be dominated by the original Navarre large district government officials.

The original Basque large district belonged to the side being merged, so the officials of the Basque large district naturally could not become the main body of the new Navarre region.

Gao Da spent the longest time presiding over the Navarre region, staying for about a week.

Facts proved that Gao Da's personal presence was indeed very effective. By the time Gao Da left the Navarre region, the formation of the local regional government had been successfully completed, and the preparations for the regional parliamentary elections were also underway.

It was expected that within the next month, the Navarre regional parliament would hold new elections to decide the allocation of parliamentary seats.

Compared to the Navarre region, the situation in the Asturias region was much better.

Although it was also formed by the merger of two or more large districts, the situation in the Asturias region was clearer and more straightforward.

The original Asturias large district had a population of 680, 00, while the Cantabria large district had only 360, 00.

Although it was a pity that the Cantabria large district was merged, it could not be denied that the population of the Asturias large district accounted for nearly 70% of the population of the new region after the merger, so the regional government and regional parliament were naturally dominated by the original Asturias large district government and parliament.

Coupled with the fact that the people of the Cantabria large district still had a strong sense of national belonging, the large district merger work went much more smoothly than in Navarre, and it did not require Gao Da to personally preside over the relevant work.

By the time Gao Da left Navarre for Asturias, the government of the Asturias region had already finished merging, and the relevant work had already entered its final stages.

For the formation of the new regional parliament, the Asturias region adopted the simplest method, which was to directly merge the parliaments of the two original large districts to jointly constitute the first parliament of the Asturias region.

This situation would continue until the next regional parliamentary election, and it would not affect the work of the parliament during this period; it could be said to be a relatively proper solution.

Leaving the Asturias region, Gao Da headed to Santiago, the capital of the Galicia region.

Galicia was not involved in this administrative division reform; if one had to say, it was just changing the original Galicia large district into the Galicia region.

Under normal circumstances, Gao Da would not have needed to go to Galicia. After all, it was just a renaming task, which each regional government could complete very quickly.

But considering the importance of Galicia, Gao Da still chose to go to Galicia personally to inspect and urge the local government to complete the process of changing from a large district to a region more quickly.

As the administrative district that was formerly the fourth most populous in Spain and is now the fifth, the importance of Galicia naturally goes without saying.

The reason Gao Da chose to go to Galicia personally was partly because of the particularity of Galicia compared to other regions.

Galicia neither pursued autonomy and independence like the Basques and Catalans, nor was it as stable as other regions of Spain.

If one had to say, Galicia was somewhere in between. Galicians had a certain sense of belonging to Spain, but they also supported Galicia gaining more autonomy.

Compared to the more radical methods of Catalonia and the Basques, the Galicians were clearly more moderate and did not reject staying in the big family of Spain.

The reason why Galicia had no changes in this administrative division reform was precisely because Gao Da was worried about the reaction of the Galicians.

Merging Galicia with other large districts was simply impossible, as this would make Galicia even larger, and the Galicians would pursue an even higher autonomous status.

Dividing land and population from Galicia was also impossible, as this would arouse the dissatisfaction of the Galicians and make them lean toward the rebellious attitude of Catalonia and the Basques.

Facts indeed proved that compared to other regions of Spain, Galicia's recognition of the country was not that high.

When Gao Da arrived in Galicia, the work of reforming the large district into a region had not yet been completed.

One must know that even the Asturias region, which involved land changes, had basically completed the change from a large district to a region, let alone Galicia, which had no changes in territory or population; renaming should have been very fast.

Upon arriving in Galicia, Gao Da immediately discovered something wrong and immediately issued his orders to the Galician government.

Gao Da demanded that Galicia must complete the transition from a large district to a region within one week and rename the large district government and large district parliament.

The powers and functions of the regional government and regional parliament after the renaming had some subtle differences compared to the previous large district government and parliament; these differences were also what Galicia needed to pay special attention to.

Gao Da did not want the regional government to have any overstepping behavior; each regional government only needed to obediently listen to the cabinet government and complete their respective development tasks.

This point was also the biggest difference between a large district government and a regional government. A large district government had higher autonomy, but a regional government must abide by and uphold the constitution and act according to the constitution promulgated by the parliament.

Under the pressure of Gao Da, the Galician government had to speed up the political division reform and, on the fourth day after Gao Da arrived in Santiago, successfully completed the corresponding renaming work.

After the Galicia region completed the corresponding reforms, the administrative division reform of Spain was basically more than half complete.

Gao Da did not stay in Galicia for too long; after all, after the political division reform, there were more important government affairs waiting for Gao Da to handle.

The perspective returns to Madrid.

With the promotion of Spain's administrative division reform, the parliament also held multiple discussions on the powers of the new regional governments and regional parliaments and added them to the constitutional amendment.

The current Spanish constitution was hastily established after the revolution, and it was inevitable that there were many unreasonable or unaddressed areas.

In the 16 years since Gao Da's coronation, the Spanish parliament had also amended the constitution many times, clarifying the powers of the monarchy, the cabinet, and the upper and lower houses, keeping Spain's political situation stable for a long time.

After the large districts were rebuilt into regions, the Spanish parliament was also discussing the division of powers regarding the new administrative divisions, as well as the election processes and relevant decrees for each regional government.

After Gao Da returned to Madrid, he also attended the parliamentary meetings as an observer and roughly clarified the thoughts of some members on the power changes of the new regional governments and regional parliaments.

The regional government naturally goes without saying; all members of the regional government, including the governor, needed to highly obey the orders of the cabinet government.

Regarding the regional parliament, the original method of each region electing regional parliament members and the regional parliament electing lower house members had no changes.

It was just that because the number of Spain's administrative divisions had decreased, the number of lower house seats that each region could elect also had certain changes.

Such changes were not critical; they were nothing more than allowing some regions to elect a larger number of lower house seats.

The truly critical change was the second article, which was the reform proposal regarding the election process of the regional government.

In Spain's original constitution, the large district head was elected by the district parliament, and it was very difficult for the cabinet government and the lower house to intervene.

Although the cabinet government and the lower house also had supervisory power over the major large district governments and district heads, it was difficult to remove the heads of the major large districts on the premise that the other party did not violate the laws of the major large districts.

After the large districts were changed to regions, this situation had been well alleviated.

The Spanish cabinet government had the power to directly remove the governor, which was also the most direct and effective way for the cabinet government to strengthen the control over each region.

Compared to the cabinet government's power to directly remove the governor, the reform plan proposed by the members of parliament mainly focused on the election of the governor.

The original election was directly held by the large district parliament among its members, which inevitably allowed some politicians with short political careers to leap into high-ranking officials like district heads.

The proposal that the parliament was voting on was also based on this aspect. This proposal did not change the process of the regional parliament electing the governor, but it modified the conditions for all regional parliament members to be eligible to run for governor, changing it to a recommended election system.

What does this mean? It means that only those who are recommended are qualified to run for the position of governor; other people, whether they are members of the regional parliament or members of the lower house, are not qualified to run for the position of governor.

How can one be recommended? Or rather, which institutions have the power to recommend candidates?

According to the parliamentary proposal, only two institutions have the power to recommend candidates, and that is the upper and lower houses.

In addition to the gubernatorial candidates recommended by the upper and lower houses, governors of each region whose terms are ending will automatically obtain the qualification for recommendation.

Of course, if the governor's performance during their term is poor, they might have their recommendation qualification revoked by the parliament, and a governor whose recommendation qualification has been revoked cannot continue to run.

The specific content of this proposal is that when each region elects a governor, the upper and lower houses each recommend one gubernatorial candidate, plus the original governor, totaling three people to participate in the gubernatorial election.

Each regional parliament votes among these three gubernatorial candidates to elect a new governor; the one with the most votes wins and automatically obtains the position of governor, with a term of five years.

Why should the upper and lower houses recommend gubernatorial candidates? This proposal also has relevant explanations.

The lower house has members from each region and naturally understands the situation of each region well, which is the reason why the lower house obtained the recommendation qualification.

And the upper house has jurisdiction over the performance appraisal department, so it is clear which officials have good performance and which officials have poor performance.

It is relatively reasonable for the two houses to jointly recommend gubernatorial candidates for each region, because since they have undergone certain inspections and audits during the recommendation, there is naturally no need to worry about those who are not proficient in government affairs rising to high positions like governor due to various accidents.

(End of chapter)