On May 9th, Europe day, three 4th ESO students from our school (Nuestra. Señora del Castillo) went to our village’s town hall to help us to resolve some questions about the European’s parliament elections on May 25th and they were received by Juan José Gálvez and Lidia.
Juan José Gálvez (city councillor
for Culture)
- What do you think the opinion of the citizens will be?
Nowadays, citizens are reluctant about
politics; politicians might have been the
cause. Due to the crisis, politicians are trying to find solutions and everyone is well informed of what is happening thanks to the media, so citizens are
in a mood that does not induce
them to vote.
For us (politicians) abstention is a form of punishment; Let people go and vote what
they want but go and vote.
People need to be aware of the importance of elections.
It is believed that there will be too much abstention, passivity
in relation to the elections in Spain; according to a survey only 17% of people will attend the European elections.
- Do you think that the town hall should inform citizens more about the elections?
The municipality has to try to mobilize people without focusing on one party or another, encourage people to
vote with information above all.
- How do parties prepare themselves for the elections? Do you agree how the campaigns trails are done?
Each party prepares their candidates, one of
them months before and another one leaves it to just some days before the
election.
It must be someone who carries out the ideas of
Europe well and also those affecting to Spain. It’s done in a different way by
each party.
- What do you think about the participation’s decrease in the elections? Why do you think that happened?
It seems a very sad fact that
impoverishes each country and sometimes people are not well informed that there are European elections. People usually participate on a higher
degree at Municipal
elections.
- Can you give us an example of a decision taken by the UE which affects our village?
There are different decisions such as the subject
of grants, expenditure control and of course, the issue of globalization.
- What strategy to attract people is the most effective in your opinion?
Clarity on the campaign trail, know what is at stake.
- What’s your opinion about the rising of minority parties and the related decrease of the major ones?
The big parties work harder so they surfer more
and the smaller parties don’t surfer the same as they.
Technically, there is no
plurality of parties in other countries
like England where there is a bipartisanship. Here in Spain, the big parties work harder so they suffer more
and the smaller parties don’t suffer the same, so minority parties know they
can propose good things but they do not know if they will be able to maintain them if they win the
elections. These parties are more popular or even more populist.
What they propose is a "play to the crowd".
What they propose is a "play to the crowd".
- Which was the method used to elect your representatives?
They are chosen in Madrid;
the Central Committee organises
a meeting in which conclusions are drawn, because it’s really difficult councillors would vote to elect their representatives, it
would be almost impossible to do.
- Would you like your opinion was taken into account?
I would if there were optimum information channels
- Do you agree with the number of deputies in parliament?
It’s decided depending on the number of
citizens, I mean, the more habitants a country has, the more deputies they
have. The minimum deputies number is 6 for countries as Malta, for example, because
if we used another way to choose the number of deputies, they would just have
nearly one.
- Do you agree with that sistem?
Yes, because I think that is a logical proportion.
- Do you think they are really necessary?
I don’t know, I think that fewer deputies might
work better and we could save money.
- Would you like to take part in the parliament one day?
No, I think we must let young people take that
places. Politics wear you out and one of the causes of disaffection
is that politicians are always the same.
LIDIA
Lidia is
in charge of representing the administration at the polling station on the 25th
May with her partner Ana. She controls 4 of the 7 tables that will be in the
village hall “Alaun” the election day.
Some years
ago, data was transmitted to the government delegation by phone. Nowadays, it’s
transmitted with PDAs and some tablets have an application for people to keep track of real time as elections go.
We have been informed of the steps that take place on the
ballot.
Stages:
Stage 1:
The representatives of the administration arrive at 8.00 AM with the members
and polling supervisors. The polling place opens at 9.00 AM. The secretary
takes the information to the Government Delegation
Stage 2: At 2.00 PM the first census of votes is done
Stage 3: At 6.00 PM the census of
votes is done to the media
Stage 4:
At 8.00 PM the polling place is closed and votes are counted. The secretary
fills in the information of the polling tables
Stage 3: At 18:00 PM turns to
conduct a census of voters, this
time for the media.
Each polling station is chaired by two members and a polling supervisor who take turns. There must be always at least
two components at the polling place.
The
representatives:
-Agents: They oversee the different tables on
behalf of his party. They have to vote in the delegate’s table.
-Controller: He’s the responsible of a table and he has to have the accreditations
which must be characterized with the party’s logo
