Laura López and Adrián Arias | Segovia (EFE) your candidacy.
“Here the best for the people is chosen and the rest, nothing. Neither PP, nor PSOE, nor Izquierda Unida, we don’t give a damn, the thing is to benefit the people,” Tomás Merino, who has been elected mayor of this town in Segovia without interruption since 2007 with this method.
According to the alderman of this town in Segovia, almost 80 years old, on March 26 a table was set up in the town school with the only presence of a judge, a young minor and the bailiff and, from ten o’clock from the morning until two in the afternoon, about 80 residents of the 153 registered there passed by.
A judge, a minor and the bailiff
“The boy under 18 years old is placed because many go and say ‘Who do I vote for?’ and if someone older is there, then they put him… In this way, they cannot”, explains the mayor.
Each one wrote the name of a maximum of five of their neighbors on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and deposited it in the ballot box; then the recount was made and the five most voted formed a single and independent candidacy.
Any resident of the town of Segovia who is registered there can be elected, “even if they do not want to”: “In the event that one of the five who have left does not want to, they go to the sixth and, if not, to the seventh and so on” , qualifies Merino.
“I tell them ‘vote whoever you want’. What I do tell them is ‘if you are going to vote for me, don’t vote for people who are a bit complicated,’” the mayor recounted.
He personally took the list on April 21 to the municipality of Cuéllar, twelve kilometers away, for registration with the Electoral Board, so that on May 28 the residents go to vote again.
90% participation
Of the five candidates who appear on the ballot in this town in Segovia, this time they can mark a maximum of four, in a process that, although it is more symbolic than anything else, every year more or less ninety percent of the voters participate. they do in the first round.
There are no candidacies or political parties or programs: “Here you vote according to the people: if so-and-so has always been trusted, according to who their parents were, the families…”, explains Merino.
Two or three days after the day of the elections, the ediles meet in the City Hall to be sworn in and vote for the one who will be the mayor.
This year, Tomás Merino has once again been elected for the fifth time in a row as mayor of this town in Segovia in this kind of “primary” and repeats along with two other residents who are already mayors, while two others will be released in office.
But as this retired farmer confesses, he would not like to be a councilor again: “Age weighs heavily, it is already a lot of age… The colleagues here tell me ‘go on, go on’, if you are retired, what are you going to do?”, he comments .
A remedy in the absence of candidates
This has been the way to elect a local government in this town since the second democracy elections or, as Tomás says, “for the whole fucking life” and it arose because no one candidate was present.
It was also like that in its “good times”, when this town, located between Segovia (70 kilometers away) and Valladolid (60 kilometers away), came to have between 500 and 600 residents and seven councilors.
The parties remain on the sidelines
In the last week, the regional secretary of the PPCyL, Francisco Vázquez, and the general secretary of the PSOE of Segovia, José Luis Aceves, have confirmed that their formations have not presented a candidacy in this town of Segovia.
Vázquez commented that the party respected this “characteristic” of the town and Aceves expressed himself along the same lines: “(San Cristóbal de Cuéllar) decides before the meeting itself who will be their representatives by popular vote and they attend as independents and we We certainly respect the democracy of the people,” he said.
In the past elections, the PP did try its luck and run, without success: “They thought they could get at least one councilor but they didn’t get any, the five of us left here,” recalls Merino.
Looking ahead to the next four years, this neighbor wants to see “finish everything that is missing” in his town, whether or not he is the mayor: “Finish making some streets and in others, which are already prepared, you have to put the water and put new sidewalks”, he details as his only desires.
Nobody wants to be mayor in Cabezuela
On the other hand, the next 28M there will be no polls in another town in Segovia, Cabezuela, with more than 600 inhabitants, since no party has been able to present a candidacy for this town governed for more than twelve years by the PSOE.
With seven councilors in contention, Cabezuela will now have to repeat his elections six months after 28M, that is, at the end of November, an appointment that will be close to the general elections.
As PSOE sources have explained to EFE, the current mayoress of the municipality, Senator Ana Agudíez, has alleged “personal reasons” for not running for a fourth term, while the formation has not managed to find anyone to run for that position , nor has the PP or other formations.
A situation that draws attention, after in 2019 there were up to three parties: PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos who participated in the elections after drawing up their lists.
Belonging to the Electoral Board of the Sepúlveda Zone, in the next few days it will report the postponement of the elections for six months. EFE