The people of Madrid around the world who have given the last seat to Feijóo with the CERA vote

Thousands of Madrid residents living abroad lived a second electoral night with the recount of the vote of the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), which allowed the PP to win a seat in the province at the expense of the PSOE. The night for some was long. Others lived with “emotion” the only movement of deputies that took place in the country. This is the case of Blanca, a 25-year-old from Madrid who lives in London. He canceled his vacation to vote from the Spanish embassy in the United Kingdom. El Confidencial has contacted people from Madrid all over the world who deposited a PP ballot in the electoral envelope, although the majority did not imagine that their vote could be so decisive.

Another case is that of Miguel Fernández. He is 52 years old and has lived in London since 2011 with his wife and two children (both of legal age).. “We are four potential PP voters,” he says. Election night was spent listening to the radio and reading the publications of this newspaper. However, during the CERA vote count, he was surprised when he realized that his phone did not stop ringing with messages from some of his friends saying “thank you”. “They contacted us saying that we had changed a deputy,” says. Between laughs, he avoids giving greater importance to the situation because it has been a decision, he assures, of “many thousands of voters”. For this PP voter, having lived with such an impact the night of the CERA vote count “was very curious”.

A few kilometers away resides Blanca. In UK since 2014. She is a doctor, and has lived in the English capital for seven years. He usually travels to Madrid to vote in situ, but, after the pandemic, he has gotten used to doing it from London. He has been a voter for Ciudadanos, Vox and, in the general elections, he decided to vote for the candidacy of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He wanted to send his vote by post, but he did not receive the envelope with the documentation at his address until after the deadline to vote from abroad had passed: “It was quite complicated”. Finally, he exercised the right to vote from the Spanish embassy in the United Kingdom. In no case did he imagine that his vote, sent to the Spanish embassy in the United Kingdom seven days before 23-J, would “influence a deputy”.

18.18% of the Spanish census in the United Kingdom exercised their right to vote during the last general elections. Blanca assures that “many Spanish friends in London (…) did not receive the documentation and did not vote, despite the suppression of the requested vote. Some said: 'What for'; 'voting never changes anything'. Not only did he not allow himself to be influenced, but he also canceled his vacation, he acknowledges, “in order to influence this.”. The young woman from Madrid selected the PP ballot, arguing that it “seemed to be a useful vote” given the “risk to the unity of Spain” in view of the coalition government's pacts. She is unrelated to party charges and adds that the only information she received from the popular was through a message, in a group with other Spaniards residing in the country, which explained the procedures for voting from abroad..

The PP has several “representatives”, affiliated with the popular, who reside in territories such as the United States, Venezuela or Belgium. They form their own territorial “committee”, although they do not have official positions in the formation, and use social networks as a way to concentrate the vote of Spaniards residing abroad. This is the case of Beatriz, from Tres Cantos, Madrid. He was “present” during the counting of the CERA votes together with a member of the CUP. “Since the polls closed until nine at night seeing that all the envelopes had the three stamps, the signature…”, he acknowledges. He uses a WhatsApp group to contact several supporters of the PP, forward content from Genoa and, in the same way, attract citizens to the party's social network in Great Britain “to have more followers”..

Madrid, stronghold of the right

It was just after 10 pm last Friday when the recount of votes in the community confirmed that the popular had taken the last seat from the socialists. After almost three hours of counting, the PP managed to close the gap of 1,749 votes with which the election night ended. The popular ones needed more suffrage, since the number was increasing for each vote that the PSOE obtained. The scrutiny record includes the 19,006 ballots from foreign voters to the PP, compared to the 10,411 that went to the PSOE. In Genoa they place the United Kingdom as one of the foci in which the foreign vote was decisive in changing the result in favor of the PP.

The majority of Madrid voters residing abroad voted for the right-wing bloc (PP and Vox), which obtained 57.08% of the total on 23-J, while the left obtained 39.8%. In the five previous elections, Ciudadanos, PP and Vox also obtained the majority of the support of the CERA vote compared to the opposing bloc (Sumar, Podemos, PSOE and IU).. The foreign vote in Madrid has been dominated by the big parties, while the other formations went from representing 19.04% in 2008 to 3.12% this year. This indicates that the capital of Spain has established itself as a stronghold of the right in the history of general elections for foreign voters.

Oblivious to the result

Some voters live oblivious to political news due to different circumstances. For example, Sofía —from Madrid who voted for the PP and has lived abroad for three years— has known the CERA vote count this Tuesday. “I've been super happy,” she says shortly after receiving the news. The woman from Madrid “took for granted” that the foreign vote was not going to “move the needle”. At all times, he thought that the result, after the elections last Sunday, would remain “as it was”. Sofia, in Indonesia for a few days, bet on the Feijóo formation in the elections, “although she is not someone I love,” she indicates. He exercised his right to vote “by discarding in capital letters” in search of “the best alternative to remove Sánchez” from the Government.