Elections in Spain: massive turnout in the first five hours of voting – 28/04/2019

Came the day. Throughout Spain, at nine in the morning (four in Argentina) opened their doors to schools and social centers (about 23,000 in total) that will be this Sunday the polling stations can vote about 33.5 million Spaniards.

Nearly 37 million people are expected to participate in these early parliamentary elections, about 34.7 million live in Spain (2 million live abroad) and more than 1.2 million of them asked to vote by mail, the highest figure of Spanish democratic history.

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Monday to Friday afternoon.

At two o'clock in the afternoon (9 am Argentina) 44.81% of voters had already voted.

Madrid woke up with clear skies and helicopters. It has 2,400,000 registered voters and, because of its population density, will elect 37 deputies.

In the street Juan Esplandiu, at the school of the city of Rome, about five thousand people are included in the electoral census. In the middle of the morning, the rows were unobtrusive and the process of selecting ballot papers for the Congress of Deputies and the Senate in this kind of portable shower that is the improvised darkroom in a clbadroom of the school . it took between fifteen and twenty minutes.

Early risers were retirees. At one o'clock in the afternoon, more than 1,800 people registered in this school had already voted.

A five-year-old boy placed in the transparent box the white envelope that his father had given him with his vote and a 42-year-old woman, intellectually deficient, he was excited to have been able to vote. For the first time, around 100,000 people with different mental disabilities will be able to vote.

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In all Spain 375 million ballot papers were printed and 212,000 ballot boxes were distributed.

During these third general elections in three and a half years, 350 deputies and 208 senators are elected from the 266 composing the upper house.

The record vote was taken by Villaroya, a town of only six inhabitants of La Rioja, who took 47 seconds to get their vote.

Four of the top five candidates voted in Madrid or in neighboring cities. When they left, they all made statements. Moderate and sedative. As if the approximate tension that dominated the election campaign was a story of the past.

The first to do so was the president of the government and head of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, who voted in Pozuelo de Alarcón, a municipality located 15 km northwest of Madrid, which, according to a study of the National Institute of Statistics, is the city with the highest average income in Spain.

Security personnel from La Moncloa arrived at 7:15 am With dogs trained to detect explosives, they searched the surrounding sewers.

Sanchez arrived at Centro Cultura Volturno at 9:25. Amid the applause, he entered a dance hall, with mirrored walls and a ballerina bar with spikes, and posed for the photographers with their envelopes (white for MPs and salmon for senators). He was accompanied by his wife, dressed allusively in a red shirt, socialist color. Some followers hid it when they left with cries of "President, President", while voices of rejection also arose: "Go now" and "traitor".

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"Let the Spaniards participate with a very strong majority so that the message sent is clear: a sufficient parliamentary majority so that we have four years of stability, peace," said Sanchez before leaving.

The second candidate to vote was Pablo Iglesias, leader of Unidas Podemos. He did it at La Navata Public School, at number 8 Estanque Street. "I voted at the public school where I expect from my children. Today, many Spaniards will go to public schools. It is a beautiful day to remember the value of public education. I hope that voter turnout is very high. This will be the best news for our democracy, "he said as he left.

Santiago Abascal, the candidate of Vox, the right-wing party that participates for the first time in general elections, voted in the Pinar del Rey district of Madrid. At 11:40, Abascal entered a room filled with colorful garlands, voted and spoke: "Millions of Spaniards will vote with hope, they will do it without fear of anyone or anything ", did he declare. We will live an election that will have a historical character for Spain. Defend the nation, defend democracy and defend Spanish coexistence. "At noon, Pablo Casado, PP candidate, voted at the Pilar School of Madrid, accompanied by his wife, Isabel Torres, who showed" I request maximum participation. What will leave polling stations today will condition Spain until 2023. The important thing is that we all vote in the head, "Casado said on a lectern mounted at the exit.-It is the act of greater confidence in democracy, it is important to know that this will condition your future. We may be facing the most decisive vote for Spain in recent times ". "I would like a stable government to go out of the polls to avoid this succession of failing legislatures that we have experienced over the past two years.

I hope we can celebrate the results tonight, "he added before entering the Santa María de Monte Carmelo Church of Ayala Street.

The only candidate for the presidential run of the Spanish government who did not vote in Madrid was Albert Rivera, the leader of Ciudadanos. He did it in a school of Hospitalet de Llobregat, in Barcelona. "Vote. Nobody stays home todayAsked a smiling and relaxed Rivera as he was not seen during the two weeks of the election campaign.

GML