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In June, the session of the Grand Council of Valais was held extramural without electronic voting (archives).
KEYSTONE/LAURENT GILLIERON
The Grand Council of Valais will once again sit in Brig for the September session due to the coronavirus. But this time, the 130 deputies will be able to count on electronic voting.
“The conditions in the usual room in Sion do not allow to keep the safety distances. And we can not put windows between the places ”, explains Thursday to Keystone-ATS the head of the parliamentary service Claude Bumann. It is therefore the Simplonhalle in Brig which will host the debates in compliance with the health measures imposed by the Covid-19.
The organization of the extramural session will cost some 80,000 francs, or 20,000 francs more than in June, due to the installation of electronic voting. “This addition allows us to regain the transparency that we had to give up during the last session”, adds Claude Bumann.
In June, the standing-sitting vote had turned out to be quite complicated and did not allow the average citizen to know after the fact the vote of his deputy. With the electronic system, the votes are nominal and they can be viewed online as is normally the case, underlines the head of the parliamentary service.
“The last session was not easy from a technical point of view,” abounds the president of parliament Olivier Turin, who welcomes this improvement. He is also delighted to be able to have an electronic intervention board in September in order to conduct his second session more calmly.
What topics on the agenda
This will take place during the second week of September and the sessions will be spread over whole days. The political groups will therefore have to organize themselves for meals, recalls Claude Bumann. In addition, talks are underway to start the session on Monday 7th rather than Tuesday 8th for financial reasons, notes Olivier Turin.
In June, the focus was on ending the crisis and supporting the economy as well as emergencies. “We will resume a normal pace. There are still many pending subjects which must be dealt with before the end of the legislature, ”underlines the President.
Among the topics that will be discussed, should include the law implementing the federal law on second homes, the law on integration and social assistance, the granting of additional credit to co-finance an exceptional promotional action of Valais / Wallis, or the granting of additional credit for measures to secure torrents in the municipality of Chamoson.
Cost sharing with the Constituent
For the October session, the decision to sit or not outside the old town of Sion has not yet been taken but Claude Bumann fears that the end of the legislature will take place in this atmosphere of coronavirus. “I also asked for offers from other sites in Bas-Valais. Sooner or later, we will also have to change part of the canton ”, if the health crisis continues . As a reminder, the rental of the Simplonhalle is offered by the authorities of Brig.
In order to best optimize the situation and share the costs, the Constituent Assembly will also sit in Brig for its plenary session which will take place a few days earlier, also indicates Claude Bumann. “From now on we are moving in parallel, because they also need an adequate infrastructure that respects health measures”.
(ATS / NXP)
Posted today at 11:30 a.m. –
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