The only sound heard on the streets of Mérida in the early hours of the morning was that of brains being recorded. At the beginning of the morning, the bells of the Spanish Steps rang, announcing the time which coincided with the opening of the electoral colleges, from which the murmur for the start of the 21-D electoral day began. In Extremadura’s capital, they rose in the dark, under cloudy skies and with little noise in the streets, on a day when some 891,000 voters were invited to cast their ballots. At CEIP Trajano, the voting center closest to the headquarters of the Junta de Extremadura, whose future will be in the polls, María Fernández, 40, was the first to insert the paper into the ballot box located at one of the three tables before taking her shifts as a nurse’s aide. “Take a photo, it’s my first time,” the woman asked another citizen.
The CEIP Trajano school is the closest voting point to the headquarters of the Junta de Extremadura, governed for two years by the popular president and candidate of the PP, María Guardiola, who seeks the absolute majority to revalidate herself to the position without the need for Vox. Like the popular leader, the rest of the extreme presidential presidential aspirants also called to participate in the comics, the first autonomous peoples anticipated in the community and which also coincided with the pre-Christmas celebrations. Many voters went out precisely knowing that this Saturday they went to the bars, resulting in a “resaca”. In the street, electoral cards met villagers, Christmas lights and people in prayer who had come to buy from the lottery. The points of greatest richness were concentrated between noon and meal time, and in the afternoon they were in decline.
“All the tables were set up with absolute normality,” announced the Government spokesperson last week, on the 11th. In total, 1,400 tables are distributed throughout the community, in two neighborhoods (Cáceres and Badajoz), which share 65 corners, of which 33 constitute the absolute majority. At CEIP Trajano, none of the members of the third table were present at this electoral college of Mérida. So the president and the singers are the named replacements. “Now we are sending more than just the school principal!” he shouted. Among them is Francisco Rebanades, whose 66th birthday coincided with the electoral campaign. “Aquí está el tío, al pie del cañón”, signal.
The campaign of this 21-D has been marked in recent days by the controversy over the theft of postal votes, highlighted by Guardiola. The president ultimately decided that he considered himself a “democracy robot.” The trip took place this Sunday without any problems, with the exception of a few episodes linked to postal suffrage. Around 6:45 a.m., a robot attempt was recorded at the post office in the town of Malpartida de Cáceres. So far, Civil Guard agents have visited in person and confirmed that no one had been suspended for any reason and that postal votes had not been affected. In another municipality of Cacereño, Alagón del Río, there was also another attempt at the post office. He tried to force the door and then entered the Town Hall, in an adjoining building, with a small but undetermined quantity of metallic silver, according to sources from the armed institute which was investigating the crimes.
The sun rose little by little throughout the morning, causing points of greater wealth than the average, but with lower participation: around 36% at 2 p.m., more than five points less than in 2023. The Casa de la Cultura de Olivenza, the town of La Raya in Portugal where former Extremeño President Guillermo Fernández Vara lived, who died in October from cancer, was in riots precisely after 1:30 p.m. “I hope that people will vote in honor of Guillermo, in his memory,” says Catalina Pacheco, 60-year-old leader of the PSOE. Until now, autonomous elections always coincided with localities.
At the 3U table, which corresponded to Fernández Vara, conversations lasting several minutes took place, while in all the conversations the socialist referent was very present. “Olivenza, daughter of Spain, daughter of Portugal”, explains in the hall of the building a mosaic on so many symbols of shared history. At the top there are three pages that take to the streets with the time to vote and other explanations about exercising the right to vote.
Víctor Gómez, 20, is the president of the table where Guardiola voted, at CEIP Vivero, on the outskirts of the city of Cáceres. The young man, a child education student, voted for the second time this 21-D and was surprised by the news that he was to become president. And in addition surrounded by means of communication for Guardiola’s vote, which made him a little nervous. “I support you a lot, it helped me a lot,” said the man. “By realityyou are going to become famous”, declared one of his singers alongside him. During these extreme elections, 26,695 young people voted for the first time. Among them, Guardiola’s own son, who had helped her to vote with her.
In several schools visited, it was repeated that many Vox had left the community. Hecho, the spokesperson for the ultras in the Madrid Assembly, Isabel Pérez Moñino, was arrested this morning at the CEIP Trajano in Mérida with other party comrades. “Female representation, eh,” Pérez Moñino said during his visit.
The formation of Santiago Abascal, which sees everyone gaining strength in these autonomous elections and whose fight with the PP is one of the keys to the result, is around 14% according to the polls. In the historic center of Cáceres, I ate three times at 2 p.m. in one of the restaurants with the central dish on the table. “We’re going to do something damn!” » » shouts one of the guests, aged around 70 years old. “First PP, second Vox and third PSOE”, the three coincide. And they emphasize that popularity will increase, but it will not reach an absolute majority.
Around 4 p.m., in the small municipality of El Carrascalejo (Badajoz), 15 kilometers from Mérida, the majority of census takers called to vote exercised their right to vote: 56 out of 82. María Teresa Granjo, 80 years old, now arrives with her husband, Juan Toledo, 81 years old. Both asked the president and singer of the single municipal council “why the name of Guardiola was not sold” on the newspaper and showed the video of the document that he considered false because Abel Bautista, advisor to the Presidency, appears and in the candidate who presents himself in Cáceres. “An acquaintance from Washington sent me the video,” he says. “What a rare thing.”
Back at CEIP Trajano, after 5 p.m., the angry faces of the members of the tables demonstrated the lack of electoral momentum. “The environment is cold, like the trip, and it’s going to be much lower than the participation, that’s clear. We had a moment when a lot of people came, between 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., and since then nothing,” explained a socialist council. About 200 meters away, at the headquarters of the National University of Distance Education (UNED), the scene was similar. The single table components waited for the final round of most requested votes to arrive. “We had a moment of greater intensity after mass. We hope something similar will happen this afternoon from six o’clock,” said one of them.
All control data in detail
About The Author
