The NGO Solidà ries coordinator denounces that one in five people residing in the province of Girona will not be able to vote in the next municipal elections. The entity figures at more than 120,780 people, who although they live and work here, will not be able to exercise the right to vote. In Catalonia there are a million people who will not be able to do it.
According to data from the municipal register collected by this NGO, a total of 134,247 people of foreign nationality over the age of 18 reside in the Girona demarcation. Of these, only 13,459 have registered to be able to vote in the next municipal elections.
Of the 134,247 foreigners, a total of 90,956 do not have the right to vote, a figure that represents 14% of the total population. This group includes those people who were born in the province to parents in an irregular administrative situation.
By municipalities, in Salt 34% of the population will not be able to vote. The figure reaches 20% in municipalities such as Girona, Santa Coloma de Farners or Olot. In the city of Figueres, the figure is close to 27% of the population.
Of the total number of foreigners, more than 43,000 come from countries of the European Union or from one of the 13 countries with which the government has a reciprocity agreement. This means that they can vote in municipal elections, but not in Catalan or state elections.
In addition, for those who come from those 13 countries (which include Colombia and Cape Verde, but not Morocco and Honduras, where a large part of the migrants residing in the province come from), the procedure to be able to vote -according to the NGO – is extremely complicated and must be repeated in each electoral call.
These conditions have led to only 13,459, 10% of those who come from countries of the European Union or from countries with reciprocity agreements, ending up registering in the census and being able to exercise the right to vote on May 28.
The entity that calls this situation “institutional racism” denounces that the “non-universalization of the right to vote causes the municipal plenary sessions to not represent the sociodemographic reality of the municipality, causes an overrepresentation of the extreme right” and that there is a lack of public policies for the whole of the population.
