Scandal and arrests for vote buying. A trip to Restoration Spain with stops in Melilla and Mojácar (Almeria). The local caciques are once again handing out alms in exchange for guaranteeing the suffrage of the citizens, who are treated like cattle that can be bought and sold. Everything goes to ensure the act of representation in the assembly or in the City Council, without which the influences and future business done in the shadow of the institutions that will guarantee the corrected and increased return of the dark would not be possible investment
A reduced and measurable electoral census, poverty, ignorance and no social integration are the most fertile ground for sowing successful electoral corruption operations. A few hundred votes are enough to guarantee the success of the operation. The demand is fueled by the cynic. The man who, whether he is a member of the Coalition for Melilla or the PSOE (the two cases we have heard about), knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, in the words of Oscar Wilde. The offer comes from the citizen who has stopped believing, or has never believed, in the institutions and who lives clinging to the proverbial saying, giving for granted clues that today’s egg is worth more (cash ) than tomorrow’s chicken (electoral promises). let’s talk It is true that we are talking about extreme cases, limited to the tiny narrowness of a couple of municipal terms. Offenses that in no way denigrate the normal functioning of our electoral days or the cleanliness, in general terms, of our system of democratic representation.
And, even so, it is possible to add a but to this categorical statement. Because, despite the fact that the organic law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg) makes very narrow the margins through which the parties in government can take advantage of the advantage provided by managing public resources, they continue to use the bottomless well of money of all to – why not? – bid for the citizens’ vote in cash.
Isn’t the Minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, trying to buy votes when he promises to build a nursing home in Santa Coloma de Gramenet if his colleague, Gabriel Rufián, takes on responsibilities at the City Council of this city? Doesn’t the Health Minister, Manel Balcells, do the same when he takes advantage of the ERC meetings to promise new health equipment in the company of the mayors? What has Pedro Sánchez been doing in the last two months, but going to buy the retired and young vote with a checkbook of public money in his pants pocket? Put any other government – ​​municipal or regional – governed by other acronyms on this list and it will certainly not be out of tune. As for the opposition, of one color and the other, the truth is that it will be more of the same. Only their checkbook and credit cards are still imaginary, and therefore collection is more dubious because there is no collateral behind it. In any case, it is time to panic, that the temple of the merchants is about to close. It’s time to decide. Who are we selling it to this time?
