Carmina will not vote in these elections, as she did not in the previous ones or in the others, be they called municipal or general, European or regional. There is no campaign that moves her to deposit her vote in a ballot box because what she does not do -and it has been years now- is leave the house: she has mobility problems, due to her age, and on her farm there is an insurmountable flight of stairs, only In very exceptional situations, he has drawn a lottery, on the fly, with the help of relatives. It will be said that if she wants to, she can, by voting by mail, with the help of a relative or neighbor, if she doesn’t know how.
But if you get inside your head you can see that something there is in being part of the community, in wanting to add your voice to that of others, that you want much less when the environment can not change or that, that you can not leave the landing of your house. Carmina is not outraged or especially upset, she should have been at first, but now, wrapped in a cloak of resignation, she lives the electoral processes as a distant reality, which does not go with her. Come on, it’s not a problem at all that this Sunday you can’t go to your polling station to vote.
Distant reality: Non-voters’ arguments revolve around a handful of motivations. What if it’s useless. That if whoever leaves does not change anything. What if the promises are never fulfilled. What if the United States or Europe sends us, neither Colau nor Sánchez click or cut. “Republic? Really?”
There is an army of neighbors in our cities that you have not seen in the streets for a long time, you did not meet them on the bus, you cannot have coincided with them at a concert or at the doctor or the supermarket. Carmina is one of them, but there are also people like Alejandro, the computer scientist who had been locked up at home for three years due to a mental crisis after the death of his father and coinciding with the pandemic. He got out, yes, out of extreme necessity and with the help of the firefighters. The neighbors sensed his problems, offered help, and have extended their hand again for when he returns. Carmina is especially helped by the neighbor, much younger than her, who sometimes acts as a messenger. Neighbors is community, community is belonging, it is neighborhood, neighborhood by neighborhood cities are made. Where has the bond that turns a neighbor into a citizen been broken? Where is disenchantment, resignation, the ultimate disconnection from a destiny that unites us all born?
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citizens in their floors that are independent republics, as that successful ikea slogan said, the doormat as a border and declaration of intent. Municipal elections have more participation than regional and general elections, because the voter generally feels that their single vote may have more influence on the result, as in a raffle or contest with fewer participants. But whether you live better or worse depends more and more on wars abroad that raise food prices, bank instability that shoots up mortgage prices, fear that leads to conservative decisions and with them, job cuts. , spending, economic activity, the dynamism we need to keep rolling, growing, always on the move, always with the aim of improving our lives. The proximity policy has to reconnect with people.
The parties appeal to their bases, the politicians call for the vote, and assume that they will govern for everyone whether they voted for them or not. There will be left-wing and right-wing policies, more or less progressive, on the mandate agenda of whoever finally wins power. You will have to negotiate and weave alliances, give in in many cases. But what you should never, ever put aside is the legion of neighbors who live on the margins for one reason or another, because In its citizen integration is the soul of the process and why we vote.