Suspicion before the elections next Sunday is spreading. After the events in Melilla, the Civil Guard has now arrested seven people in an operation against the buying of votes for the May 28 elections in the Almería town of Mojácar.
Two of those detained so far by the Civil Guard for this alleged purchase of votes by mail are on the PSOE lists. This has been indicated to Europa Press by sources close to the case, who have specified that it is, specifically, number two and five on that list and that, for the moment, there are seven detainees. Those positions correspond to Francisco Bartolomé Flores Torres and Cristóbal Vizcaíno González respectively.
The operation started this morning and is still open. One of the first to react was the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, who assured that it is “very serious in terms of democratic quality that there are people who in one way or another try to alter the will of the citizens” and He has asked the State Security Forces and Corps and the judicial authorities to be “determinative” and to go to the end so that those who seek to alter the electoral processes pay for their responsibilities.
For its part, the PSOE has announced that it will suspend membership and open a file on the detainees.
The operation is based on a complaint against an alleged electoral fraud carried out by an individual who would have been affected by the alleged plot that, according to the first indications, would have affected an “undetermined number of votes.”
The investigation, which began “a long time ago”, is coordinated by the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 4 of Vera (Almería), which has agreed to decree the secrecy of the proceedings
In the last municipal elections, the PP obtained 8 councilors in the town hall while the PSOE stayed at 5. Recently, the Minister of the Presidency of the Government of Spain, Félix Bolaños, was in the town supporting the socialist candidate, Manuel Zamora
For his part, the Minister of Justice, Local Administration and Public Function, José Antonio Nieto, has been in favor of “making the necessary reforms to the Electoral Law to prevent this type of situation from occurring.” And it has reported that “the Central Electoral Board is already working on this matter requesting information and collecting data from the investigation”, before considering that “all the measures that have to be adopted prior to the holding of the elections to guarantee the cleanliness result will be welcomed and supported by the Ministry and the Government of the Junta de Andalucía”.
