At 9:00, the polling stations across Andalusia have opened their doors. More than 6.8 million Andalusians have until 20:00 to cast their vote and elect the 109 deputies of the regional Parliament. The president and PP candidate, Juan Manuel Moreno, starts as the favorite, but without an absolute majority guaranteed. If he falls short, he will need Vox to form a government, as already happened in the recent elections in Extremadura, Aragón, and Castilla y León. The PSOE, with María Jesús Montero as candidate, aims to stop its decline, and polls place it around 23%, its worst historical figure in the community. This year, 368,853 people will be able to vote for the first time, representing an increase of 2.58% compared to the census of the last elections held in June 2022, which the PP won with 41% of the votes. The turnout was 58.36%.
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Polling stations open in Andalusia in an election where Moreno seeks an absolute majority
At 9:00, polling stations across Andalusia opened with 94% of the tables constituted. More than 6.8 million Andalusians have until 20:00 to cast their vote and elect the 109 deputies of the regional Parliament. The president and PP candidate, Juan Manuel Moreno, starts as the favorite, but without an absolute majority guaranteed. If he falls short, he will need Vox to form a government, as already happened in the recent elections in Extremadura, Aragón, and Castilla y León.
Andalusian elections
The main problem of Andalusians and its impact on the polls: the 17-M measures credibility to fix healthcare
“Our emergency rooms are overwhelmed, hospitals are overloaded, the primary care network, the entry point of the Andalusian public health service, has been dismantled in recent years and its intended function almost eliminated. All this results in increased waiting lists, violating guarantee decrees.” This is not a phrase spoken by any opposition party leaders during this election campaign. It is an excerpt from the PP of Andalusia’s 2018 electoral program with which Juan Manuel Moreno, thanks to the support of CS and Vox, managed to become president of the autonomous government.
You can read the full information here.
Andalusian elections
Juan Manuel Moreno: “A government with Vox is an impossible government”
No poll has sketched the possibility of change in Andalusia, but Juan Manuel Moreno (Barcelona, 56 years old) is the candidate who has traveled the most kilometers in this campaign. He has been a bearer of the Virgin of the Head and a singer. He has been and done everything because his main rival, he says, is overconfidence. His strategy is to win these elections from the center, and that is why, after years of harsh opposition to the PSOE in Andalusia, he corrects himself when criticizing the socialists (“sorry, sanchistas,” he adds). His political career is unique: in 2019, he achieved alternation in Andalusia with the worst result in the history of the PP, was the first popular baron to make a pact with Vox, and now openly distances himself from the agreements of his colleagues in Extremadura and Aragón, both sealed with the endorsement of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
You can read the interview here.
Why are these elections being held?
The president of the Andalusian Government, Juan Manuel Moreno, dissolved the Andalusian Parliament early on March 23 and argued that he wanted to obtain a renewed mandate to face the challenges of the coming years, at a time when the polls were favorable to him.
Although most communities vote together every four years on the fourth Sunday of May, coinciding with municipal elections, Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque Country have their own electoral calendar.
ANDALUSIAN ELECTIONS
María Jesús Montero: “The most serious thing happening in Andalusia is the weakening of public services”
She starts with all polls against her but does not allow herself a second of discouragement. The former vice president of the Government and socialist candidate for the presidency of the Andalusian Government, María Jesús Montero (Seville, 60 years old), is finishing a campaign in which Pedro Sánchez and PSOE veterans like Manuel Chaves and Carmen Romero have thrown themselves to claim the party and call on that electorate that mobilizes in general elections but not in regional ones. Above all messages, Montero emphasizes one: next Sunday “citizens are playing for public services.” The policies of the PP and Vox, she says, “are indistinguishable.”
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Read the full interview here.
ANDALUSIAN ELECTIONS
Antonio Maíllo: “The PSOE hesitates and Adelante does not want to govern. We are the useful left-wing force”
It is not the first time Antonio Maíllo (Lucena, 59 years old), candidate of the left-wing coalition Por Andalucía, faces a campaign in the community as the lead candidate. He did so in 2015, before a rising Podemos and after the abrupt end of the coalition government in the Junta with Susana Díaz’s PSOE. Now the Cordoban politician says he is “calm.” Experience and the stomach cancer he overcame a few years ago have put everything in perspective. After two televised debates in which he has tried to differentiate himself from Adelante Andalucía, the federal coordinator of IU claims the usefulness of his ballot, links his future to what happens on 17-M, and is clear that what happens in Andalusia will be “decisive for the general elections.”
You can read the interview here.
Can you be fined for not attending the polling station if summoned?
Yes. Being a member of a polling station is a legal obligation, not an option. This is established by article 27 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime, which expressly states that the positions of president and polling station member are mandatory.
Those designated who do not attend without justified cause face two types of sanctions. The administrative route contemplates fines between 100 and 600 euros. The criminal route raises that range to between 300 and 3,000 euros and includes the possibility of a prison sentence of between three months and one year.
Those who receive notification of their designation have seven days to claim a justified cause before the Electoral Board of the Zone. Illness, death of a close relative, or force majeure are some of the reasons the law recognizes as valid.
ANDALUSIAN ELECTIONS
Jose Ignacio García (Adelante Andalucía): “We are not going to drive the right-wing out of Andalusia by going back to the past. We bet on a new left”
José Ignacio García, leader of Adelante Andalucía, assures that he does not have as many shirts with protest messages as it seems. But those he has worn in the Andalusian Parliament have been enough to make them a recognizable symbol of his image. A 38-year-old from Jerez, a public school teacher, as affable as he is tenacious in debate, García faces the last days of the campaign with the wind in the polls’ favor. However, that would not be enough for the left to evict the PP from the Andalusian Government.
You can read the full interview here.
Polling stations are constituted in Andalusia
Polling stations opened at 8:00 in the morning in Andalusia for their constitution. If there are no incidents in the formation of the 10,403 polling tables, voting will begin at 9:00. More than 6.8 million Andalusians are called to elect the 109 deputies of the regional Parliament.
ANDALUSIAN ELECTIONS
The PP tests the effectiveness of the “Andalusian way” to stop Vox
The two main territorial leaders of the PP, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Juan Manuel Moreno, were true to themselves this Thursday. Each in their own style. The Madrid native, in a defiant attitude, grabbed headlines with an irresistibly catchy phrase, “Mexico did not exist until the Spaniards arrived,” thus keeping alive a controversy with international repercussions that has put her at odds with the highest authorities of a country of more than 130 million inhabitants. The Andalusian took a photo with a cow. Neither Ayuso’s resounding defense of her trip to Mexico nor Moreno’s campaign event in a Cordoban landscape manage to synthesize their political personalities. But they do give clues. If the former moves like a fish in water in the cultural battle on issues that Vox counts among its favorites, the latter stands out for his eagerness to show a friendly image, without ideological stridency.
You can read the full information here.
Good morning. We start the live narration of the election day in Andalusia. More than 6.8 million Andalusians are called to the polls in an election in which the PP, with President Juan Manuel Moreno as candidate, starts as the favorite but without an absolute majority guaranteed. If he falls short, he will need Vox. The PSOE, with María Jesús Montero as candidate, aims to stop its decline, and polls place it around 23%, its worst historical figure in the community.
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