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Raul Garcia Hemonnet
Just over two months from the regional and municipal elections. The world of parliamentary simulations approaches Madrid municipal politics. ASESP will celebrate its SIAYM (Simulation of the Madrid City Council) from April 17 to 20 at the Vicálvaro campus of the URJC. The activity takes place just over a month and a half before the municipal and regional elections are held.
The participants will assume the role of a councilor of a party that emulates the parties represented in the consistory and will have to carry out legislative proposals, amend those presented by other representatives and appear before the media.
4 work commissions have been established to replicate the activity of the Madrid City Council: Emergencies; Family, Equality and Social Well-being, Finance and, finally, Environment and Mobility.
The objective, says María Carballo, a student of the Double Degree in Political Science and Economics, is “to make a simulation as real as possible. We try to be very rigorous because we want it to help people learn how to legislate, how majorities work, or how the media works."
Politics and press
Five groups have been created with parties similar to the main actors in the parliamentary arc: Ganemos (similar to Podemos), Moderate Patriotic Party (PP), Por Madrid (Más Madrid), Voice (Vox) and Centrados (Ciudadanos). "When making the profile we try to give roles contrary to the ideology of the participants, to give the possibility of putting themselves in the shoes of the other and trying to do pedagogy against polarization", indicates María Carballo.
Likewise, there will be delegations from various communication media with very marked echoes to other existing media actors: 21 Districts, TeleCibeles, M30 Radio and D-Tarde. The councilors will have to appear before them to discuss their proposals or to deal with information that may compromise them.
The activity is aimed at all students “every time we have more heterogeneous profiles (medicine, mathematics, protocol…) who want to participate. We have very high expectations. It is an event that has been very well received. The world of simulations has diversified. People come with great enthusiasm and there is a generational change”, explains María Carballo.
Parliamentary simulations allow participants to improve their skills to speak and argue in public efficiently, "which I think is essential for any professional." ASESP has been organizing parliamentary simulations for 5 years. They have emulated the Catalan chamber, the United States Congress or the Parliament of the Italian Republic, among other legislative assemblies.
A different way of complementing the different subjects that are dealt with in the URJC classrooms and very much in touch with current events.