The PP sweeps Melilla after the scandal of the purchase of votes by mail that has shaken the electoral campaign. The popular ones exceed 50% of the votes cast with more than 50% counted, which will give them, except for surprise, a very comfortable absolute majority to govern the autonomous city for the next four years.
Juan José Imbroda will thus recover the presidency of the North African city. He held it between 2000 and 2019, but a bizarre pact between the Coalition for Melilla, PSOE and Ciudadanos gave command to the only mayor of the latter formation, Eduardo de Castro.
On this occasion, CPM gets 4 representatives, and PSOE and VOX, 3 each and SNL one more. All very far from the 14 of the PP when 94% of the votes have been reviewed.
Not even yesterday, with the case in the hands of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and an unprecedented police deployment, was there calm on election day: various voters who had started the procedures to vote by mail –without success– showed up at their polling stations to exercise such a right, which is not allowed.
The Zone Electoral Board (JEZ) and the Government Delegation in Melilla also detected that "some" of these citizens tried to vote with false justifications from the JEZ, so that they are now being sought as allegedly responsible for a crime of documentary falsification .
"We know that of the more than 11,700 Melillans who requested a vote by mail, not all have materialized, but those who have not materialized cannot do so today at the ballot box," said the government delegate, Sabrina Moh Abdelkader. In 2019 there were barely 4,200 people who asked to vote by mail, less than half of the 11,700 at yesterday's appointment. Of these, 5,800 concluded the process, with which the remaining 5,900 count as abstentions.
After the electoral appointment, the discovered vote-buying plot will have to be unraveled. The decree of the State Attorney General pointed out that the investigations carried out by the Police reveal "the existence of a large-scale vote-buying operation" that would have been carried out "by various individuals related to or related to the Coalition for Melilla ” (CPM).
"The purchase of votes would also be financed with part of the funds obtained by companies and individuals related" to CPM "in public tenders, agreements, contracts and subsidies that would have been awarded during the last legislature."
The president of the Coalition for Melilla (CPM), Mustafa Aberchán, asked days ago that the leaks to some media that linked his formation with Morocco in this operation be investigated.
Before the escabechina in the PSOE or Coalition for Melilla, the participation was the first victim of the day in Melilla, where at six in the afternoon it fell almost eight points (7.76%).
In Ceuta the PP also won, although in a tighter way: it drew 9 representatives, for the 6 of the PSOE, the 5 of VOX, the 4 of the Movement for Dignity and Citizenship and the 3 of Ceuta Ya.
