The Periódico de Catalunya believes that a reform is needed of the Spanish electoral law of 1985 because it is a regulation that was devised for an immature democracy in which lawmakers held a paternalistic view of the electorate. The ban on publishing polls on voting intentions in the five days before the election sought to avoid undesirable influences on citizens’ voting decisions.

But three decades have now passed since Spain returned to democracy. There have been numerous elections – general elections, European and local elections – which have been conducted with transparency and rigour. That is why it is time to change the law.

The regulation, which is clearly contrary to the freedom of information, does not prevent polls from being conducted; only publishing or broadcasting them. In other words, political parties, media organisations or companies can commission polls until the day of the election and enjoy the results without sharing them with the citizens at large.

The elites become the exclusive owners of information of undoubted public interest.

There is no proof that the publication of polls benefits one party or another.

The poll data are part of the overall information received by the public, along with news accounts of political rallies, candidates’ speeches – often in the exaggerated tone of with political campaigns – and the analyses of specialists. It does not seem very logical that the publication of polls should be forbidden five days before the election while the preelectoral carousel continues with all vehemence until the day of the vote.

The relentless advance of the new communication technologies – internet, text messages, etc – allows information to flow unstoppably, making it impossible to keep the results of the opinion surveys secret. The polls also form part of the modern world. Surveys determine our wage rises, measure television audiences or assess levels of unemployment.

The Spanish citizen is today surrounded by surveys, so it seems absurd to try to protect him from them.

The Periódico de Catalunya has shown up all these contradictions by ensuring that a newspaper in neighbouring Andorra belonging to the same editorial group, Grupo Zeta, continues to publish polls that can be accessed by internet from any computer in Spain. By doing this, we have not wished to defy the electoral authorities but, rather, demonstrate that the regulation is obsolete.

But we do not only need to reform that aspect of the law.

Other provisions, such as the so-called “Day of Reflection”, in which candidates cannot campaign, or the draconian rules that govern electoral information on public television, are constraints that a democratic society must overcome. By contrast, it would be good to effectively regulate debates between the candidates so that they cannot avoid them when they are not in their interests and so that minority parties could take part.

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