The police have dismantled the attempted electoral fraud in the autonomous city of Melilla by buying votes. There have already been nine detainees, released by the judge, among them Mohamed Ahmed Al Lal, counselor of the autonomous government and number three on the list of the Coalition for Melilla (CpM). The case also has another aggravating circumstance, a branch in Barcelona where an alleged attempt to bribe Post Office officials is being investigated to try to extract the votes by mail from Melilla once the alarms went off and then send them to the polls from other parts of Spain. The arrest of the CpM adviser confirms the suspicions that were leveled at the party from the beginning, led by Mustafa Aberchan (his son-in-law and his brother have also been arrested), who was convicted in 2021 by the Supreme Court to two years in jail, together with the former general secretary of the PSOE in the city, Dionisio Muñoz Pérez, for a similar case.
The mechanism was discovered after electoral documentation was stolen from postmen in Melilla and the skyrocketing requests to vote by mail -21.21% of the electoral census- due to the action of intermediaries with a history of drug trafficking and other crimes. When it was discovered, the electoral boards They forced those registered in Melilla to vote by presenting their DNI. What happened later confirms the fraud that was being plotted, since the delivery of votes stopped and until yesterday only 1,882 of 11,707 requests had arrived.
The votes already sent without the DNI (761) have been validated by the electoral board, a decision that has been appealed, which opens the door to a possible annulment of the election result and its repetition. They are few enough to have a decisive impact on the distribution of seats, but it will have a notable effect that thousands of those who have already sold their vote will not be able to deposit their ballot on Sunday because they have requested to vote by mail.
In Melilla it rains it pours and the involvement of a party that governs with the PSOE in the city forces the socialist party to give explanations, and more with the mentioned antecedent. Melilla is an isolated case and has nothing to do with the false rumors disseminated by extreme right-wing media about alleged pouting, but the investigation must go to the end.
Meanwhile, a difficult dilemma arises. If the results are appealed and annulled (significantly, it is the now designated CfM who requests it) the entire process could be redeveloped under scrupulous control. But that could benefit the electoral interests of those responsible for the plot, by preventing a large part of the votes they processed from being left in limbo. Finally, it will be the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia who will decide the matter, based not on criteria of opportunity but on the fact that the right of participation can develop flawlessly. Beyond the specific case, it is also necessary to reflect on whether it is enough to reinforce controls, as has been done, after detecting suspicious movements, or whether a revision of the electoral law is necessary. Claiming the physical presence of the voter with the DNI, as has been done now, both when requesting the vote by mail and when delivering it, has made it possible to stop the maneuver under way, but if this measure were to become generalized, it could suppose an unnecessary obstacle in the exercise of a basic right.