Guardiola insists on the theory of vote rigging: "It doesn't matter what the Civil Guard's conclusions are"

BarcelonaThe president of the Extremadura regional government and PP candidate for re-election, María Guardiola, is reiterating her theory of electoral fraud following the theft of a safe from the Fuente de Cantos post office (Badajoz), which contained 124 ballots from Sunday's regional elections. Although the Civil Guard has classified the incident as a case of "common crime"—the safe also contained €14,000, and the ballots were found scattered around it—Guardiola insisted this Friday that democracy is "in danger" when votes are stolen. When questioned by the media about why she is making these statements without waiting for the police investigation, she went so far as to say that "it doesn't matter what" the Civil Guard's conclusions are. Guardiola, who has found support from Alberto Núñez Feijóo in her theory of electoral fraud, lamented that the other political parties did not publicly denounce the situation on Thursday. Of the other parties, only Vox endorsed the existence of a "corrupt mafia capable of anything, even altering electoral processes," in the words of the far-right leader, Santiago Abascal. "I don't know what a thief's objective is, what I do know is that someone is stealing the right to vote of the people of Extremadura from the post office, three days before an election," Guardiola insisted this Friday. Despite these statements, the PP candidate admitted that she doesn't believe the incident will affect the election results. She did criticize, however, that in the final stretch of the campaign there is "a lot of nervousness" and "few values, little ethics, and a lot of dirty tricks." And she took the opportunity to add, now in electoral terms, that what she wants is "to continue building a project for the future of Extremadura."

Several robberies

The stolen safe was found hours later "completely burned out," with the ballots scattered around. There was no trace of the money. In recent days, according to the Civil Guard, robberies have also been detected at post offices in Talavera Real and Villafranco del Guadiana, but in these other cases, the thieves only took office and commercial supplies. In the final stretch of the campaign, the People's Party (PP)—and Vox as well—has found in these robberies an opportunity to raise the issue of electoral fraud. This is not the first time the PP has questioned the integrity of the elections. In the last general election, Feijóo already denounced a hypothetical intention on the part of the postal service to prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote. From the Spanish government, the Minister of Digital Transformation, Óscar López, criticized Guardiola for fueling what he called "ridiculous conspiracy theories." Echoing the Civil Guard's findings, López stated that the motive for the robbery was "clearly financial" and recalled that the thieves even "threw away" the ballots because "they were after one thing," referring to the money. "It would be ridiculous, pathetic, if it weren't so serious, for Feijóo's People's Party to have joined in far-right conspiracy theories," the minister concluded.