Eduardo González
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just published the deadlines for voting from abroad in the autonomic elections of next February 18 in Galicia, a community in which almost 18% of the voters reside abroad.
According to the Ministry, the electoral roll in force for these elections is the one closed on October 1, 2023. A total of 2,693,624 voters will be able to participate in the elections to the Galician Parliament. Of these, 2,217,110 reside in Galicia and 476,514 abroad, 17.7% of the total.
According to the electoral census published by the National Statistics Institute (INE), Argentina is at the head of the Galician diaspora, with almost 166,300 voters. It is followed by Cuba, with almost 45,700; Brazil, with almost 45,400; Uruguay, with more than 37,000; Switzerland, with more than 34,000; Venezuela, with almost 26,700; and the USA, with almost 23,300. Furthermore, in France there are more than 17,400 Galicians with the right to vote, in Germany almost 15,400, in the United Kingdom more than 13,600 and in Mexico almost 13,000, to name the countries with more than 10,000 voters in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.
Between January 13 and 19, the Electoral Census Office will send Galician voters residing abroad the first documentation for voting, which will include, among others, the voting envelope, two certificates of being registered in the census of the abroad, the address of the official website on which the candidatures will be displayed (where the downloadable sets of ballots will be available) and the list of the centers authorized for deposit in the ballot box within the scope of its consular demarcation. This sending will be made ex officio, once the so-called “requested vote” has been eliminated-
Subsequently, between January 24 and 28, voters will receive a second shipment with the official ballots for the candidates, if there are no challenges (no later than February 3 if there are any). Finally, voters will have from January 23 to February 13 to send their votes by mail to the consulates. If they would like to vote at a ballot box, they will have six days to do so, between February 10 and 15.
The president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, announced on December 21 the call for regional elections for next February 18. The electoral campaign will begin on February 2. Rueda will present himself for the first time as a candidate for the PP of Galicia (PPdeG), after succeeding Alberto Núñez Feijóo in office. The current president of the PP and candidate for the Presidency of the Government in the last general elections of July 23 governed Galicia for four consecutive terms, between 2009 and 2022 (when he left office mid-term to lead the PP at the national level), after winning four elections by absolute majority.
The current Parliament of Galicia has 75 MPs (42 from the PPdeG, 19 from the Galician Nationalist Bloc and 14 from the PSdeG-PSOE). In these elections, only Ana Pontón will repeat as a candidate, leading the BNG for the third consecutive time. José Ramón Gómez Besteiro will be number one on the socialist lists.
