Elections in Madrid: 40-minute lines and bullrings enabled to vote

Marina Artusa

05/04/2021 8:46 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 05/04/2021 8:46 AM

On an atypical Tuesday, from 9 in the morning, Madrilenians line up to vote in these early elections that will

have collateral effects

on the national political board.

With a delay of between 20 and 40 minutes in the queue due to the security measures implied by the Covid protocol to vote, some 5.2 million residents in Madrid are entitled to elect the next regional president in 1,100 polling stations that will be open until midnight. Eight o'clock at night.

They are the

fourth

regional

elections

that Spain goes through in times of pandemic - after Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia - and the first elections since the vaccination campaign began, at the end of February.

So far, some five million Spaniards have already received the two punctures to achieve immunization against Covid-19.

Voting is not mandatory

Although voting is not mandatory in Spain, the legislation provides for

a paid leave

of between two and four hours, depending on the work schedule, so that people do not stop casting their vote.

The Community of Madrid

developed an app

for voters to follow, in real time, the influx of polling stations and thus choose the best time to vote.

Part of the pandemic security protocol is to recommend to the population time slots to approach the ballot box.

Photo: Reuters

Part of the pandemic security protocol is to recommend to the population

time slots

to approach the polls: it is advised that those over 65 years of age do so until midday.

And from 19 to 20, patients infected by Covid-19 and those who are serving isolation.

At one in the afternoon, 28 percent of Madrilenians had already voted, a figure that reflects a

two-point

increase

in citizen participation in these elections.

Absentee ballot

More than 200,000 Madrilenians, however, preferred to

vote by mail

, a figure that represents 47 percent more residents who did so in the last regional elections, those of 2019.

The pandemic led to the creation of unexpected spaces such as bullrings or

basketball courts

as electoral colleges

.

In Las Rozas, a municipality 20 kilometers from Madrid where some 67,000 people vote, a school set up the voting tables inside its gym.

And in Moralzarzal, the neighbors lined up around the bullring to enter to leave their vote in the ballot box.

The pandemic led to the creation of unexpected spaces such as bullrings or basketball courts as electoral colleges.

Photo: Reuters

"Today we choose the model of Community and of the country that we want from tomorrow and I only wish it to be in coexistence," he said at the exit of the Chamberí neighborhood school, in the capital, where the current president of Madrid had to vote, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is going for

her re-election.

After a thick and polarized campaign, where there were no shortage of bulletproof envelopes addressed to candidates, officials even to a former president of Spain, Díaz Ayuso, candidate of the Popular Party, leads the polls to reoccupy the Real Palacio de Correos de la Puerta del Sol, seat of the regional government of Madrid.

The big question is to see if he will be able to add votes to overcome the 69 necessary seats in the local Parliament that would grant him an absolute majority, the key to govern alone and without the need to ally with any other party.

The vote of the current Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is going for her re-election.

Photo: AFP

If this is not achieved, it is uneasy to reveal if the elected PP will agree with the

extreme right of Vox

, or not.

His candidate, Rocío Monasterio, was the subject of

a frost

when she approached the school of San Agustín, where she had to vote.

With naked torso and writing, a trademark of Femen feminist activists, a group of women waited for her shouting "It's fascism, it's not patriotism!"

"There are some who believe they are defenders of women's rights and they are anything but that", was the response of Monasterio upon leaving his electoral college.

Rocío Monasterio, from Vox, was the subject of a frost when she approached the San Agustín school, where she had to vote.

Photo: AP

In the ideological antipodes of Vox, the leader and candidate of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias -who left the vice-presidency of Spain to run for the presidency of Madrid-, said: “These elections

are much more

than regional elections.

We risk stopping lies, hatred, the extreme right that wants to paralyze our institutions. "

More Madrid

“Today can be a historic day.

We can turn the applause into votes ”, were the words of the candidate Mónica García, the one chosen by the Más Madrid party for these elections.

More Madrid, the formation that emerged when it separated from Unidos Podemos, is emerging as a force that will achieve

a good regional election

.

After standing in line for 45 minutes at an electoral college in the Ciudad Lineal district, the PSOE candidate, Angel Gabilondo, stressed that "every vote counts."

"I will try not to lose,"

said Gabilondo ironically, who aspires to mobilize the poorest neighborhoods in the south of the Community of Madrid to vote for the left.

His intention is to join forces with

the populism of Pablo Iglesias

- whom he initially rejected as an ally - and with Más Madrid, the formation that emerged when he separated from United We Can, and which is emerging as a force that will achieve a good regional election .

“It is important that everyone participates,” said Edmundo Bal, Ciudadanos candidate, after leaving his electoral college.

He alluded to the great specter of

abstention

in an election held on a Tuesday.

His party, the liberal force that is dying in almost all of Spain, is gambling its entrance to the Parliament of Madrid.

Madrid.

Correspondent

ap

Look also

Joaquín Leguina, former regional president: "What happens in Madrid anticipates what is going to happen later in Spain"

Elections in Madrid: the "poisoned" Spanish "crack" behind death threats and bullets in envelopes