The Government has highlighted the “absolute normality” with which the process of opening polling stations has been carried out throughout Spain, where, an hour and a half after the opening of the polls, 99.99% of the voters were already constituted. the polling stations.
In a press conference at the Data Center installed at IFEMA in Madrid, the Secretary of State for Communication, Francesc Vallès, and the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Isabel Goicoechea, stressed that normality has been the characteristic note of the first hour and a half of the municipal elections, and “no incident worth mentioning” has taken place.
99.99% of the 60,542 tables prepared to receive the votes of the 35.5 million people who can go to the polls in Spain were constituted at 10:48 a.m. At this time there was only one table left to be set up in the Canary Islands.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior has explained that “no incident worth mentioning” has occurred in the opening of schools and has highlighted the rapid participation of the La Rioja town of Villarroya, located some 63 kilometers from Logroño, where it has been again the first municipality to close its polls after the vote of all the members of its electoral roll in less than a minute.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, Sánchez, has encouraged this Sunday to vote in the elections that are held on this day and to do it positively in the face of intolerance, noise and tension that he has seen exemplified in the shouts that a person uttered when he began his statements to the media.
The president voted at the Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo in Madrid with his wife at 9:30 a.m. He has been one of the early political leaders in these 28-M elections together with the lehendakari, Ãñigo Urkullu, and PSC candidate for mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, president of the Basque PP , Carlos Iturgaiz, among others.
The socialist leader has been uncreated at the entrance and exit of the polling station by a citizen who has yelled at him: “Let Txapote vote for you!”. “This is a pity -Sándchez responded-, that on election day, in such an important democracy, we unfortunately have the intolerant, the disqualification, the noise, the tension and the insult”.
The president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, called this Sunday to vote “massively” to achieve a “clear” mandate in the regional and municipal elections and thus be able to have “unity, stability and solid governments” in the future.
This was pronounced after exercising his right to vote for the first time in Madrid. At around 11:10 a.m., he arrived at the Ramiro de Maeztu school accompanied by the mayor of the capital and candidate for re-election, José Luis MartÃnez-Almeida.
“I call for a vote,” he encouraged Feijóo despite the fact that in different parts of Spain it is expected to rain and in some cases “with greater intensity.” “I hope there will be a moment to be able to exercise that right that makes us all equal,” he remarked.
The Madrid president and PP candidate for re-election, Isabel DÃaz Ayuso, wished this Sunday “massive participation” in the regional and municipal elections, despite the rain, and that its result be “the best for Madrid and for Spain “.
After noon, Ayuso voted at the La Inmaculada Marillac School, in the Chamberà district, amid the expectation of the residents who were exercising their right to vote at that time.
Ayuso thanked all the people involved in the electoral process for their work on this day, who work so that everything develops “with total normality”.
Also to the people of Madrid “for their exemplary behavior in these difficult years”, and he has expressed his confidence that there will be “massive participation” and that the streets are “full of life”.
“I wish the best for Madrid and for Spain in these elections and that everything develops normally,” Ayuso told the media.
Nearly 35.5 million citizens vote this Sunday for the representatives of some 8,100 municipalities in Spain in a very close election in which 12 autonomous governments are also renewed, in addition to the assemblies of the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, island councils and other territorial entities.
Some highly contested elections, which could be the prelude to the next general elections in December and in which political change is at stake in up to seven regions.
The key places in this electoral map are the Valencian Community, Aragon, Castilla La Mancha, La Rioja, Melilla, Cantabria or the Canary Islands, while the cities of Barcelona, ​​Seville and Valencia could also be at risk of change.
