The Andalusian PSOE filed a complaint this Thursday with the Andalusian Electoral Board for the coordinated execution of a “dirty campaign” with “black political propaganda,” “anonymous, misleading and deliberately manipulative” in the provinces of Seville, Cádiz, Huelva, Córdoba and Jaén against its candidate for the presidency of the Junta, María Jesús Montero.
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The complaint is signed by the Secretary of Organization and legal representative of the party, Francisco Rodríguez, who asks the electoral body to communicate it to the Prosecutor’s Office so that it “assesses the possible existence of organized acts of covert political propaganda, opaque financing, coordinated electoral disinformation or any other act aimed at fraudulently altering the free formation of the will of the electorate.”
The socialists warn of the placement of posters and electoral supports in municipalities of those five provinces directed against leaders of the Andalusian PSOE and in which messages such as “Let them vote for you in Seville,” “For these… let Susana return,” “Without Ambrosio we don’t go,” “Let them vote for you in Fuenteovejuna” and “Without Juanfran we don’t go” can be read, accompanied by images of the former president of the Junta, Susana Díaz, the former deputy and former mayor of Córdoba, Isabel Ambrosio, the deputy to Congress for Jaén Juanfran Serrano and the general secretary of the PSOE and candidate, María Jesús Montero.
The PSOE asserts that “the temporal, territorial and graphic coincidence of the events excludes any hypothesis of isolated or spontaneous action and evidences the existence of an organized political propaganda action deployed in a coordinated manner.” In the opinion of the PSOE, the “dirty campaign” seeks “to fraudulently manipulate the perception of the electorate through techniques of political intoxication and electoral disinformation” which constitutes “a direct breach of the principles of transparency, objectivity and electoral cleanliness” of article 8.1 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime.
The PSOE considers it “impossible” that the simultaneous execution of a campaign of this type occurs without professional contracting, relevant economic financing and an organized structure, so it deduces that there are “rational indications of opaque financing.” The PSOE recalls that, in other campaigns, such as that of 2018, although it does not cite this date, there was anonymous propaganda of this type aimed at “demobilizing the progressive electorate.”
The complaint demands from the Electoral Board “the immediate withdrawal” of the “black propaganda” and that it urgently requests the Security Forces and Corps for the immediate preservation of recordings from public and private cameras, identification of vehicles and persons involved in the massive placement of posters, and analysis of possible organizational connections between the different affected provinces.”
