Tuesday 23 October 2018

It's Getting Tight (Can we vote in May next year or not, pretty please?)

A community needs to have its spokespeople: who represent them, speak for them, collect taxes in their name, spend the common money wisely (without stealing more than 20%), plan for the future and celebrate the past. The town hall (in case the penny hadn't dropped) needs to attract extra funding from the central, regional and provincial authorities, chase after the elusive tourist (without buggering up the community for the residents), educate and entertain its children, provide culture for its general population, and protect its poor and infirm through social programs.
No doubt I've missed a few points, but, in short, the town hall needs to represent its population, and be chosen democratically by its population.
No tricks, like adding people to the padrón a few months before the elections (twenty or more people at one address?). No tricks, like pruning the padrón or neglecting to tell the foreign residents that they have to register to vote.
No tricks, like not telling the British residents if they can vote at all.
While that key question is being asked - no one is answering.
There are seventeen British councillors in Almería - and even they don't know what will happen. (The best info I can find for Spain in general comes from 2008, when there were 37 British councillors across the country.)
In 2014, a national newspaper published an article titled 'Immigrants in local politics?'. The article
said this: 'The political inclusion of immigrants is still very unequal with respect to the indigenous population. Despite the extension of their electoral rights, they are under-represented among the final number of elected councillors, and to a lesser extent on electoral lists'.
Some data was forthcoming: Towns with 15% foreign population - had less that 1% representation in local politics.
Foreigners currently make up 10% of the population of Spain.
In Spain, there are 240,934 British residents legally registered by the Ministry of the Interior (about the size of the city of Granada). In Almería, there are 14,318 Brits.
All of these, if over 18 years old, can currently vote (until told otherwise).
So who will tell us, pretty please, and when?
The provincial newspaper Almería Hoy looks at the current number of foreigners in each and every town in Almería. They note that in Mojácar, almost half of the entire population (from information provided by the town hall) is foreign - indeed, out of a total population of 6,630 inhabitants, 3,005 'mainly British' - are foreign.
Will we have the vote in May 2019, following the Brexit, or not?
Because without it, the town hall of Mojácar will cease to represent the wishes of around half of its citizens.

2 comments:

  1. Indeed Lenox and a question that I have asked in various places with the response that nothing has been agreed. I asked Susana Diaz who told me to contact the Oficina de Extranjeros at Almeria which I did. They responded immediately to say no agreement yet. I emailed the MEP for where I used to live in Suffolk and didn't even get a reply. I believe it's important to be able to vote in municipal elections and to make sure you are on the electoral roll by December to be able to do this.

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  2. Hi Lenox in our municipality we are making the assumption that issues like this will (probably) remain until at least the end of 2019. The authorities in Andalucia have a committee working on preparing their response to the final Brexit deal (whatever that is) in regard to rights of the expat communities.
    In view of that we (our Town Hall) are going door to door (prior to mid December) to ensure that all who can and wish to have signed the censor form to enable them to vote next year.

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