The alleged plot to buy and sell votes by mail "on a large scale" in Melilla will be assumed by Anti-Corruption, after the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, ordered it.
A decision made due to "the seriousness and importance from the social and political point of view" and "given the claim to alter the free manifestation of the popular will" in the elections next Sunday, as stated in the decree that was signed. this Thursday.
According to tax sources, this measure also responds to a question of internal consistency since the case of Mojácar (Almería) -in which an alleged plot involving the PSOE is being investigated- is in the hands of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.
In Melilla, since there was no such delegate figure, it was the ordinary Prosecutor's Office who had entered the case. The decree details that the investigations carried out so far by the National Police "have revealed the existence of a large-scale vote-buying operation, through which between 100 and 50 euros were paid to a significant number of citizens, altering the mechanics legally established voting by mail”.
It details that "this criminal operation began on April 4, following the publication in the BOE of the electoral call, and it would have been carried out, according to the investigations carried out, by various individuals related to or related to the political party Coalición por Melilla".
“These individuals would form an organized structure, with prior and concerted planning, and the purchase of votes would also be financed with part of the funds obtained by companies and individuals related to the political party indicated in public tenders, agreements, contracts and subsidies that are they would have awarded during the last legislature in the autonomous city ”, he adds.
All this, points out the decree of the attorney general, could constitute electoral crimes but also embezzlement, prevarication, bribery and documentary falsification.
Correos reported that it has validated 5,814 votes by mail in Melilla, almost half of the 11,727 requests processed. A figure that tripled the 4,210 votes for this procedure that were registered in the 2019 elections, on a census of some 60,000 people.
Finally, 5,814 ballots have been executed, 49% of those processed. In Ceuta, 1,969 votes have been executed
