On the 22nd May PSOE and the PP will be hoping to gain the votes of almost half a million foreign voters a figure which could determine the outcome in 180 town halls.
With 473,748 foreigners registered to vote in the forthcoming local elections due to be held on 22nd May who wins their votes could have a significant impact on the outcome of the elections. Most of the foreigners registered to vote are from the European Union, Norway and Latin America – Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. The Spanish government signed a pact back in 2008 giving their citizens the right to vote in Spain and this is the first time that they will be allowed to exercise their right to vote in Spain.
Although the number of foreigners registered to vote is still modest the potential numbers of voters is much higher – at present only a third of almost one and a half million foreigners have registered to vote. However electoral teams for both the PP and PSOE believe that trying to win over foreign voters is a long term strategy which will pay off in the future.
Alfonso Ortega, the author of a report on the subject says that although the impact of foreign vote on the Spanish local elections later this month may not be so great in 2015 it could prove to be decisive.
It is widely believed that most non EU voters tend towards the centre left especially those voters from Latin American countries who see the Spanish president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as a defender of their rights. However, Ortega also says in his report that two factors could damage PSOE’s popularity amongst voters from Latin America. Firstly the negative impact of the recession on this group of immigrants – unemployment amongst immigrants is around 30% and the restrictions introduced in the law on foreigners which came into effect in 2009.
However, according to Ignacio Urquizu, a sociologist for the Complutense University of Madrid, while PSOE is in a position to receive votes from Latin American immigrants the PP is expected to receive votes from European immigrants especially Rumanians (103,355 registered to vote) and British citizens living in Spain (102,633 registered to vote) because this group of voters will tend to vote in a similar way to the way they vote in their own countries and are therefore expected to favour more conservative options.
PSOE has high hopes for the number of potential votes from foreigners which is why they spent 150,000 euros on a campaign to increase the number of non EU immigrants on the electoral register. However, the campaign was only partially successful because only 50,000 immigrants out of a total of 350,000 have registered to vote.
