In January 2005, the Canarian Electoral Court ordered the holding of presidential elections in the Barcelona Sporting club, despite the fact that due to the disqualification of one candidate, only one candidate remained in the competition. Two decades later, in the same scenario, the electoral court in Barcelona decided, after disqualifying the candidate for the highest dignity, to directly appoint the only candidate for the presidency. This year, there was no opportunity for the yellow members to cast their vote at the polling stations.
Why were there elections in 2005 with only one candidate, and why were there no elections in 2023 under the same circumstances? Two popular shipyard entities have successively experienced the most irregular election processes in their institutional lives, close to their centenary.
Chaos reigned in Emelec and Barcelona SC during the election period. In the case of electric, blue members could not vote until November 2022, ten months after the original date and after suspensions in January, June and September of that year. The list led by José Pileggi defeated the list of two other candidates.
Everyone intervenes
Meanwhile, the Canaries will have Antonio Alvarez Henriques on duty this Wednesday, but without an option. In addition, in addition to the blue and yellow, there were the interventions of the ordinary judiciary, the submission of requests for protection – one of the candidates for the presidency of the Emelecists and the members of his list persistently did this -, accusations, protests about the registry, disqualifications of candidates later re-admitted, and a long series of abnormalities .
Organizations outside of Barcelona SC and Emelec also participated, such as the Attorney General’s Office, the Guayas Sports Federation – it stopped governing soccer in Buenos Aires in 1950, when it left amateurism to go professional -, a judge’s order that the People’s Office ombudsmen, the Ministry of Sports and the State Electoral Council “followed the constitutional decision”. The Ministry of Sports was also consulted, which had to request an explanation of the Law on Sports from third parties. And finally, two different views of the same entity (Barcelona SC Electoral Court) regarding the identical event.
On January 17, 2005, the Electoral Court of Barcelona SC disqualified the candidacy of José Vicente Viteri and declared the list of Isidro Romero Carbo the only one approved to compete in that year’s elections. The head of the court, Ernesto Pazzos, together with the other members (Jorge Bejarano Orrantia, Carlos Espinoza Miranda and Alfredo Rodríguez Falconí) announced the disqualification of Viteri.
With only 494 votes
Viteri was disqualified due to illegitimacy in six partner companies, which is why he could not gather the 181 signatures required to register the list, as required by the statute. On January 20, 2005, with only one candidate, there were elections. With 494 votes, Romero won the position of president of Barcelona SC. He said then: “it’s time for the most popular team in Ecuador to bring joy to all yellow fans” and that he had “many surprises”.
In February 2006, Romero “caused an internal upheaval in the yellow club”, noted EL UNIVERSO on February 14, 2006: he resigned in Spain, where he lived and remotely presided over Barcelona SC. The thirteen-month fiasco ended after Emelec won 3-0 at Monumental.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/eluniverso/4AXXTVPXHFH2DBEIJUQT3AMB3E.jpeg)
“This process takes time, involves a lot of commitment and work; Unfortunately, my work commitments inside and outside the country and my current life do not allow this, which is why I presented it to the board of directors of Barcelona SC,” Romero’s resignation reads.
A winner without a choice
The 2023 election process in Barcelona was chaos, so much so that there was no election. On October 23, in a statement signed by César Terán Sánchez (President) and Ralph del Campo Valle (Secretary), the Electoral Court reported that it did not accept the presidential candidacies of Rafael Verduga and Carlos Alfaro Moreno. It was stated that the two lists did not comply with Article 151 of the Law on Sport, Physical Education and Recreation (2010), in Chapter XI (‘Sports Leaders’).
Antonio Alvarez, originally a candidate for vice president on Alfaro Moreno’s list, replaced the former soccer player, but the electoral court rejected his nomination. But then he backed down when a precautionary measure overturned the decision marginalizing Alvarez on October 30. Meanwhile, Verduga’s appeal was unsuccessful in the regular courts.
“Therefore, before the Canarian Electoral Court, he must officially announce what happened to Verduga’s candidacy, and since it is the only qualified list, Antonio Alvarez would be the virtual president of the yellows,” this paper writes. Unlike what happened in 2005 – there were elections with one candidate – the Electoral Court ruled on November 8: since there was only one qualified list, it declared the winner headed by Alvarez, who will be sworn in this Wednesday. (D)
Source: Eluniverso
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
