The Guardia Civil’s investigation into alleged mail-in vote buying in favor of the PSOE in the local elections of May 26, 2019, has taken a new turn. According to a summary available, the Seville Judicial Police are also investigating a possible diversion of European funds used to cover up irregular practices favoring the PSOE in the Seville town of Albaida del Aljarafe. What initially appeared to be an isolated incident in a small Andalusian municipality may turn out to be part of a systematic pattern that could also occur in other Spanish cities, according to sources consulted by this newspaper. Proceedings have also been initiated in Almería, Murcia, Tenerife, Melilla, and Ciudad Real regarding similar incidents.
The Trip to Brussels as a Means of Pressure
The facts examined indicate that an institutional trip funded by the European Parliament was intended to be used as a means of pressure to guarantee postal votes in favor of the PSOE. This trip, originally planned for young people for educational purposes, was offered to Albaida del Aljarafe City Council employees as an incentive to submit their postal ballots in advance and in a controlled manner. According to the investigation, the municipal employees would travel to Brussels for a symbolic cost of €20 per person, with the remaining costs to be covered by Brussels.
In July 2020, the narrative of these events began to take shape when a witness voluntarily appeared before the Guardia Civil to testify as part of the investigation into possible violations of the Organic Law on the General Electoral Regime (Loreg). In his statement, recorded in the police report, the witness stated that after the 2019 municipal elections, he learned that the Albaida City Council government team, which had won those elections representing the PSOE, had offered its employees a trip to Brussels on the condition that they vote by postal ballot.
Postal Voting and Party Control
Sources consulted by THE OBJECTIVE explain that the postal voting took place on the premises of the city council itself, which guaranteed that the votes cast would favor the PSOE. Such practices were designed to ensure control over the votes in favor of the party and minimize the risk of external manipulation.
The trip to Brussels, whose official purpose was to tour the European Parliament’s facilities and promote knowledge of the European institutions among young people, was organized by former MEP and former mayor of Albaida, Soledad Cabezón, who also belongs to the PSOE.
Allocation of Seats
The original plan for the trip called for between 48 and 50 seats, half of which were to be allocated to Albaida City Council staff, not to young people. However, to complete the trip, an official from the Albaida City Council had to contact the Sports and Youth Council of the city of Olivares in the province of Seville to offer the vacant positions to the consistory employees.
The witness also stated that he had several discussions with the mayor of Olivares, Isidoro Ramos García, and the Youth Council, in which both acknowledged that positions had been offered but decided to decline. The Olivares City Council considered it inappropriate for its employees to participate in the trip without an explicit electoral commitment, which ultimately led to the positions being offered to young people in the youth sector.
The canceled trip and the disappearance of the funds
The situation became more complicated when suspicions about the trip arose and several officials questioned the motives. Faced with growing unrest and doubts about the transparency of the process, the Albaida City Council suspended the offer to its employees. According to witness statements collected by the Guardia Civil, it was claimed that “no flights were available to complete the trip to the European capital,” although this justification was questionable. In fact, around 25 young people from Olivares traveled to Brussels on the scheduled dates.
The key question now remains: where did the European funds go? Although the trip for Albaida’s employees never took place, the funds allocated for it have not been returned. The Guardia Civil suspects that European funds were diverted for other purposes, possibly constituting a crime of misappropriation of public funds.
An Organized Strategy
In August 2020, a second complainant confirmed the facts presented by the first witness and provided details about the manipulation of the electoral process in Albaida del Aljarafe. According to his statement, the practices described were not an isolated incident, but part of an organized strategy within the PSOE’s orbit, whose goal was to guarantee electoral victory by controlling postal votes.
These investigations have expanded over time and are beginning to connect with other similar cases in various parts of Spain, such as Melilla, Almería, and Tenerife. The researchers believe that these types of practices may have been repeated in other municipalities, with the same goal of manipulating election results by controlling postal votes.
