Can elections be bought in Spain?
BarcelonaThe short answer to the headline of this news is no. The long answer admits nuances, such as, for example, how much money and infrastructure does the politician or party that wants to manipulate the elections have? To alter the results, there is only one remotely viable option and it is not precisely the one that Vox and Isabel Díaz Ayuso have been hinting at for days. The way would be to buy enough elected deputies to change the electoral results. But, of course, the fraud would be extremely difficult to hide. Can you imagine ten deputies from the PSOE or the PP voting against their candidate?
We will never know – but we will always suspect – what happened in the Madrid Assembly in 2003, when two socialist deputies abstained in the decisive vote to make the PSOE candidate, Rafael Simancas, president. "I didn't get paid anything," Eduardo Tamayo, the main protagonist of the tamayazo, has been repeating ever since, which led to the repeat of the elections and Esperanza Aguirre becoming president of the community. If the PP had wanted to manipulate those elections – the popular party has always denied it – the best moment would have been precisely then: they needed exactly two socialist deputies to disown their party.
But this is not what the PP and Vox are talking about today, who point out that Pedro Sánchez would be preparing to "buy" the next general elections. How? They say by altering the electoral rolls with the massive incorporation of immigrants or by controlling postal voting. Is that possible? "The elections are absolutely safe," explains to el ARA the former head of Electoral Processes of the Generalitat, Ismael Peña-López. How can he be so sure? Firstly, because "Correos is impregnable." "Changing one vote might be easy, but many more would have to be changed, and to do so with 1,000 or 30,000 there would have to be so many people involved that it would be noticed," he explains. Postal voting, moreover, is usually a small part of the total.
Regarding the regularization of migrants, the extraordinary process opened in the State does not grant nationality and, therefore, does not grant the right to vote either. And in the case of the naturalization of up to 2.5 million relatives of Francoist exiles (basically in South America) thanks to the democratic memory law, it is a way to obtain a European passport. The electoral participation of expatriates –especially those not born in Spain– is minimal and the possibility that they will do what Vox suggests –that hundreds of thousands who do not even know each other strategically choose the constituencies where to register to alter the results– is little more than science fiction.
Thousands of those involved
details have begun to be given about the Pope's visit to the StateAnd Indra, the company that centralizes the information from the polling stations, receives it in an encrypted database that cannot be edited. Error or manipulation on a small scale would be possible. Doing so with enough force to change the results is entirely impossible. "Those who insinuate the manipulation of elections are part of anti-democratic movements interested in sowing things that they later believe they can reap," opines Peña-López. Doubting the credibility of institutions is the first step.
The details of the week
This week details of the Pope's visit to the State have begun to be released. At the headquarters of the Episcopal Conference, in Madrid, a journalist from Rac1 asked the archbishop of Barcelona, Joan Josep Omella, about Camp Nou, generating a murmur and some curses among the other journalists. It wasn't because it was Barça's stadium, but because the question had been asked in Catalan. "I believe that almost all of you understand Catalan when an Aragonese like me speaks it," replied Omella, eliciting some laughter in the room.
Borja Sémper, the "moderate" of the PP, has reappeared this week after overcoming cancer. At the event, there were some retired politicians, such as Ciudadanos' Albert Rivera and Begoña Villacís. The former candidate for Madrid was seen very effusive greeting journalists, entering hand in hand with Cuca Gamarra and, in the end, sending an audio explaining that she was very happy to have returned to politics for a day.