Participation in voting at the District Councils on Monday was almost non-existent despite claims by the Ciudadana Councillor Sabina Galindo, who said that it was the first time that elections were held to elect the representatives of the different municipal districts.
Only 5 of the 11 districts were able to hold elections as in the rest the number of candidates was less than the number of places requiring to be filled and in two of them voting was suspended.
Two of the districts in which voting should have been held were districts X and XI (Orihuela Costa), however, an error in the ballots forced the voting to be suspended. The councillor said that these ballots will be re-run in the future.
There were no problems in the remaining three districts where voting took place, Districts II (Orihuela centro), VIII (Hurchillo-Arneva) and VII (Desamparados).
However in a statement issued toward the end of the day the councillor Galindo attempted to put a positive spin on the proceedings saying that “today in Orihuela a great step has been taken, because for the first time, elections have taken place to choose to the representatives of the different districts.”
Of course she failed to mention that voting took place in only 3 of the 11 Districts and that the turnout was abysmally low.
She added “we are pleased to be pioneers in a project that should have been launched years ago and has finally seen the light.” What she failed to say was that the light was rather less than a flicker!
