The Adjusted Normal, 29. Voting the Usual Result.
Well, the regional elections have come and gone. And we're back where we were the day before. The conservative PP have won another majority for another four years. Why was I expecting any different?
Yesterday morning, when I drove by, there was an evenly spaced line outside our parish polling place. It seemed participation was up. But, when we went after lunch, the place was mostly empty. Most likely, those who always vote, went in the morning, so as to go to the beach in the afternoon.
We were greeted at the door by a cousin of my husband's who works at the township. He put sanitizer on all our hands and told us to follow the lines on the floor, placed so no one would bump into anyone else. In front of the urn, instead of handing my identity card, I had to put it in a box, so the person in charge of the table could read my name and number to the others, who were crossing off the names of those who voted. Then, I could move aside a paper on top of the urn, and deposit the envelope with my ballot. The only difference from normal years were the masks, the hand sanitizer, the lines on the floor, and that no one handled my ID card.
The good news is that neither ultra-right Vox nor supposedly-centrist Ciudadanos got even one seat. The bad news is that the far left lost all representation. The winner was the PP, followed by the BNG (Bloque Nacionalista Galego, the nationalist left of center party), and lastly, the Socialists.
If you count all the votes emitted, roughly a little over half voted right-wing, and a little under half left-wing. In our township, a Socialist stronghold since the Second Republic, over half voted left-wing. Focusing on the parties, obviously, the PP won, but the second winner was the Bloque.
I think the reason the Socialists didn't change at all, and that the parties that were affiliated to the national Podemos lost, was because they had no message for the regional voters. It was more of the same as offered nationally. The pandemic has influenced here, I think, because people will see the government in power badly. Thanks to the lockdown, and loss of jobs, closings of business, and loss of profit, the measures introduced by the government are not much liked. Thanks to the people who died despite the lockdown, and the pop-ups of infections, still, and the less-than-normal normality, the government is also not much liked. It's a lose-lose situation. The regional versions of those two parties didn't know how to break away from the negativeness, and give these voters something different, that they wanted to hear.
The Bloque did so, though part of its gain was voters fleeing the other parties that would never in their lives vote for the PP. And the PP has offered nothing, but the insistance on their good management. What good management, when they held up many applications for temporary unemployment benefits for many Galician workers? Or the only thing they ever did when Alcoa was deciding to leave, was to blame the central government for not lowering their electric rates. They only know how to do cutbacks in essential services. And do some election day tricks.
There were videos circulating, and there have been accusations, of employees and nuns from elderly residences driving their elderly charges to the polling places to vote. Ah, and one video had the employee give each charge the appropriate ballot to stick in the urn. (In Spain, ballots are mailed home, and can be taken to the polling place if you don't want to pick up the preferred ballot and put it in its envelope at the polling place.) This has been going on for years.
Another thing that has been going on, though I don't know if the lists have finally been purged, is that the dead can vote, too. Until ten years ago, at least, the names on the roll sometimes included somone who had died. Generally, it was someone living abroad with the right to vote, whose death had never properly been declared here. The funny thing is, that someone else, presenting identity card, voted in their name, because some of those names were crossed off the roll. Galicia, the region where your right to vote is so sacred, you can vote in perpetuity. For the PP, of course.
At least, it's not as bad as it was in Argentina years and years ago. I once read an anecdote of someone entering a voting booth there, and picking up a ballot from one of the piles. The round eye of a shotgun pushed through between the curtains at the back, and a voice softly crooned, "You're choosing from the wrong pile." The voter hastily put back the ballot and chose from the correct pile. There's nothing like being reassured you're choosing wisely.
Life continues.
Yesterday morning, when I drove by, there was an evenly spaced line outside our parish polling place. It seemed participation was up. But, when we went after lunch, the place was mostly empty. Most likely, those who always vote, went in the morning, so as to go to the beach in the afternoon.
We were greeted at the door by a cousin of my husband's who works at the township. He put sanitizer on all our hands and told us to follow the lines on the floor, placed so no one would bump into anyone else. In front of the urn, instead of handing my identity card, I had to put it in a box, so the person in charge of the table could read my name and number to the others, who were crossing off the names of those who voted. Then, I could move aside a paper on top of the urn, and deposit the envelope with my ballot. The only difference from normal years were the masks, the hand sanitizer, the lines on the floor, and that no one handled my ID card.
The good news is that neither ultra-right Vox nor supposedly-centrist Ciudadanos got even one seat. The bad news is that the far left lost all representation. The winner was the PP, followed by the BNG (Bloque Nacionalista Galego, the nationalist left of center party), and lastly, the Socialists.
If you count all the votes emitted, roughly a little over half voted right-wing, and a little under half left-wing. In our township, a Socialist stronghold since the Second Republic, over half voted left-wing. Focusing on the parties, obviously, the PP won, but the second winner was the Bloque.
I think the reason the Socialists didn't change at all, and that the parties that were affiliated to the national Podemos lost, was because they had no message for the regional voters. It was more of the same as offered nationally. The pandemic has influenced here, I think, because people will see the government in power badly. Thanks to the lockdown, and loss of jobs, closings of business, and loss of profit, the measures introduced by the government are not much liked. Thanks to the people who died despite the lockdown, and the pop-ups of infections, still, and the less-than-normal normality, the government is also not much liked. It's a lose-lose situation. The regional versions of those two parties didn't know how to break away from the negativeness, and give these voters something different, that they wanted to hear.
The Bloque did so, though part of its gain was voters fleeing the other parties that would never in their lives vote for the PP. And the PP has offered nothing, but the insistance on their good management. What good management, when they held up many applications for temporary unemployment benefits for many Galician workers? Or the only thing they ever did when Alcoa was deciding to leave, was to blame the central government for not lowering their electric rates. They only know how to do cutbacks in essential services. And do some election day tricks.
There were videos circulating, and there have been accusations, of employees and nuns from elderly residences driving their elderly charges to the polling places to vote. Ah, and one video had the employee give each charge the appropriate ballot to stick in the urn. (In Spain, ballots are mailed home, and can be taken to the polling place if you don't want to pick up the preferred ballot and put it in its envelope at the polling place.) This has been going on for years.
Another thing that has been going on, though I don't know if the lists have finally been purged, is that the dead can vote, too. Until ten years ago, at least, the names on the roll sometimes included somone who had died. Generally, it was someone living abroad with the right to vote, whose death had never properly been declared here. The funny thing is, that someone else, presenting identity card, voted in their name, because some of those names were crossed off the roll. Galicia, the region where your right to vote is so sacred, you can vote in perpetuity. For the PP, of course.
At least, it's not as bad as it was in Argentina years and years ago. I once read an anecdote of someone entering a voting booth there, and picking up a ballot from one of the piles. The round eye of a shotgun pushed through between the curtains at the back, and a voice softly crooned, "You're choosing from the wrong pile." The voter hastily put back the ballot and chose from the correct pile. There's nothing like being reassured you're choosing wisely.
Life continues.
A ver que sai disto.
ReplyDeletePolo menos non nos andan con escopetas, de momento.
De momento.
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