European election day passes without major incidents

In Poland, the Electoral Commission, which supervises the development of the European elections, reported this Sunday of total normality and low turnout of voters on an election day to which 29 million Poles are called.

In an appearance before the press in Warsaw, the president of the National Electoral Commission (PKW), Sylwester Marciniak, confirmed that after midday only 11.66% of Poles with the right to vote had gone to the polls, a figure still lower than the 14.4% recorded in the previous elections for the European Parliament in 2019.

In addition to the 32,000 electoral centers that opened their doors at 7:00 a.m. (05:00 GMT) in the morning and that will continue working until 9:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT) throughout the country, 299 tables have been set up in consulates and embassies around the world. to facilitate in-person voting for the Polish diaspora.

In Portugal, the influx of voters has been somewhat higher until midday, with 14.48% participation, compared to 11.56% in 2019, according to data from the Ministry of Internal Administration (of the Interior).

More than 10.8 million Portuguese are called to go to the polls this Sunday to elect their 21 representatives in the European Parliament among the candidates of 17 political parties.

According to the ministry, 14.48% of national voters exercised their right until 12:00 local time (11:00 GMT time), while 7.97% of non-national community voters residing in Portugal did so until that time.

Austria and Belgium

Meanwhile, election day in Asutria passed without incident, although strong storms in the southeast of the country blocked several roads and destroyed some voting locations.

The storms accompanied by hail caused heavy flooding in some areas of the southeastern strip during the early hours and made access to several voting locations impossible, according to the Austrian press.

However, the authorities immediately opened other spaces for the elections, so weather conditions are not expected to affect the vote.

For their part, Belgians are called to vote in national and regional elections in which an advance of the extreme right in Flanders is projected and a weakening of the traditional parties, which outlines long negotiations to form a government.

Belgium, a country divided between the Dutch-speaking area of ​​Flanders in the north and Wallonia in the south, where the population speaks French, took 493 days to form a government coalition after the 2019 elections.

The outgoing chief executive, Alexander De Croo, of the liberal Open VLD formation, which leads a seven-party pact, has little chance of staying in power.

Spain

However, in Spain the Animalist Party with the Environment (PACMA) has reported that in several polling stations all of its party’s ballots are torn, hidden and covered by those of other parties, and even cannot be found directly, some incidents which he has described as “serious”.

According to the Animalist Party, in many schools the party’s ballots are not displayed correctly, and in some cases they have not even been taken out of the boxes.

And among the incidents, the one that occurred at a polling station in Malaga, at the Adelfa Infant School, stands out, where the party’s ballots “had not even arrived.” Source: news

comments