Thousands of votes requested by mail in Melilla have been left out of play. Of the 11,727 petitions processed in the autonomous city, 5,814 people have finally voted, 49.57% of all voters by post, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior, updated this Friday morning. The figure represents a considerable increase compared to the numbers collected by the Interior on the afternoon of this Thursday, when the deadline to deposit the envelopes expired. Until then, 3,612 census takers had cast their vote, 30.85% of the votes remotely. Therefore, in the last hours and speeding up the minutes before the deadline expired, 2,202 ballots were delivered to the Post Office. “In the last hours of yesterday, the delivery was constant and without pause, although without crowds. A nonsense compared to the other days ”, they affirm from the Government delegation. The only post office in Melilla kept its eight windows open to the public until ten at night.
The Melilla Zone Electoral Board (JEZ) and the Central Electoral Board (JEC) decided last week to require all Melillans to go to a Post Office to deliver their ballot in person and with their DNI. The measure, together with police and judicial pressure, has dissuaded almost half of those registered in the autonomous city and who had requested the vote by mail from exercising active participation. The agreements of the JEZ and the JEC were adopted last week due to the high indications of purchase of those votes by mail. Shortly after, Judge María Carmen Perles opened preliminary proceedings in the Investigating Court Number 2 of Melilla, which led, already this Tuesday, to the police operation for which 10 suspects of having tried to capture those votes were arrested. Among them, the now former government adviser and number three on the Coalition for Melilla list, Mohamed Ahmed Allal, released without bail and under the prohibition of leaving the country, as stated in the order to which this newspaper accessed.
The rest of the detainees have not been called to appear before the judge at the moment. Judicial sources point out that “more investigations”, “wiretapping” or new actions are being carried out during the investigation of the case. Meanwhile, the National Police continues to search for the majority of votes requested but not delivered at the Post Office, although they could have been destroyed, according to sources close to the investigation. The disappearance of the ballots influences both the progress of the judicial investigations and the political consequences that will result after the scrutiny on May 28.
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The requests for voting by mail made in Melilla —11,727— account for 21.21% of the total number of voters called to vote next Sunday in the city. Therefore, from the outset, there will already be a high percentage of abstentions because only around 50% of those votes have materialized during the expected period. In the air those around 5,000 votes have vanished, with the greater or lesser influence that they have in some political formations or in others. Although some envelopes arrived by post from the Peninsula can still enter. With 85,000 inhabitants and some 60,000 people called to participate in the regional elections on May 28, 25 seats are distributed in Melilla and each seat costs just over a thousand ballots.
In the 2019 municipal and regional elections, 4,210 ballots were issued by post, 7.78% of the total count. Then, the Popular Party was the force with the most votes, eliciting 12,943 votes and 10 deputies; Coalición por Melilla (CpM) —the local party with the greatest influence over the Muslim community—, 10,472 votes and 8 seats, and the PSOE, 4,928 and 4 seats. The only representative achieved by Ciudadanos, Eduardo de Castro, was sworn in as president by agreeing on a coalition government with PSOE and CpM.
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During the last day to deliver the vote by post, this Thursday, in the only post office in Melilla there was a constant trickle of entries and exits from the premises, but nothing comparable to the long queues that accumulated during the days in those who the term to ask for the vote was still open. What was heard at the office entrance were the recurring conversations on the subject that is now invading Melilla. There were also a larger number of agents guarding the entrance. The question that is now planned among the neighbors is what will happen next Sunday during election day, in which “tensions” are expected in many of the schools, according to police sources and the Melilla residents themselves consulted. “It’s going to get mixed up”, is heard at a table in a bar in the center of Melilla this Friday.
Regarding the police voices that warn of possible incidents, this Sunday, in some polling stations in the city, the president of the PP of Melilla, Juan José Imbroda, has directly accused the leader of CpM this Friday, in an attention to the media. “There is nothing to do anymore, the citizen has already thought about what he is going to do on Sunday. I ask Mustafa Aberchan to stop, not to put pressure on the citizens, not to coerce, to let them vote freely”. CpM has already assured that they will challenge the elections after election day.
The Ministry of the Interior has provided for the next election day on Sunday in Melilla a special device to ensure security during election day in Melilla and in the rest of Spain. A total of 594 agents will be deployed in the autonomous city: 241 members of the National Police, 213 of the Civil Guard and 140 of the Local Police. The numbers are only slightly higher than those of the 2019 elections. Of course, in Ceuta, with a similar population and size, the operation has less than half the number of troops, 247. “Four years ago we already put a security device important because in other elections there had been moments of tension and some problem ”, they explain from the Government Delegation in the autonomous city.
The JEC also confirmed this Wednesday the decision of the JEZ of Melilla and will not annul the 761 votes deposited in the Post Office before the obligation to deliver them in person by the voter and with the DNI was imposed. The JEC considers that eliminating these votes would mean “depriving those who legally exercised their right to vote until May 10” because they are already out of time to request it again. The agency adds that “a measure of this nature” is not justified either by the “limited number of votes cast to date.” This factor adds fuel to the fire for the contestation of the elections announced by CpM after May 28. For its part, in a statement issued on Thursday afternoon, the PP denied that it was going to challenge the elections. “There are no grounds or arguments.”
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