Seven years applying for citinzenship in order to be able to vote

BarcelonaAhmed El Alaoui was born in Dubai, but lived until he was eleven years old in Morocco. Now he is twenty and still hasn't obtained citizenship. In fact, he doesn't even have the right to apply for it and he can't vote in any elections, since being a Spanish citizen is an essential requirement. Immigrants from African countries have to reside in the country legally for ten years before they can apply for it. This means that, although Ahmed has grown up in Catalonia, he will still have to wait a while before he can start the procedures that will allow him to vote. "It's an arbitrary requirement, because African immigrants are required to have lived here ten years despite being neighbours, whilst South Americans only [need to have spent] one," explains Ahmed, visibly upset.

His political concerns have led him to join the Socialist party's youth wing. During the elections, Ahmed experiences situations that he calls "ironic": "I am a scrutineer, but I am not allowed to vote". Ahmed's case is not the only one. Safia Elaaddam doesn't have Spanish citizenship either, even though she was born in Tarragona twenty-five years ago. The daughter of Moroccan immigrants, she only has Moroccan nationality, which prevents her from exercising her right to vote despite having lived all her life in Catalonia. Tired of the bureaucratic procedures that she started seven years ago to get her citizenship - and that have not yet been successful because of the administrative slowness - in 2019 this activist from Tarragona promoted the campaign Voting is a Right. Ahmed accompanied Safia in the first steps of this initiative, which aimed to raise awareness of the "seriousness" of the fact that in a democracy, one in eight inhabitants does not have the right to vote. In fact, almost a million people will not be able to vote during the 14 Feb elections because of the impediment of Spanish legislation.

Safia's campaign, which started just before the general elections of November 10, 2019, managed to get almost two thousand people who did not want to participate in the elections to give their vote to people without Spanish nationality who did want to decide on the future of their country. This year two hundred people have contacted Safia to give up their vote in these elections, and the activist hopes that the number will continue to grow. "At the moment there are 20 applicants to whom we will assign these votes," she explains

The success of the initiative is reflected in Volem acollir's campaign "1 million votes", which asks voters who do not want to use their right to vote to give it to someone who can't enjoy it. Although they pursue the same objective, Safia regrets that her work over the last few years has not been taken into account when promoting the campaign