DETAILS ABOUT VOTING

Some interesting data regarding population and elections of Orihuela Municipality. Believe me, it is worth to read it!

Orihuela is one of the largest municipalities of Spain. Its population is divided in 3 sections: Orihuela City, Orihuela Costa and the various suburbs, such as Torremendo, La Aparecida, Desamparados etc. The amount of the population is also equally distributed within these 3 “sections”, approximately 25.000 citizens in each of them.

Based on information of the INE (national institute of statistics), information available to everybody through their web page, in the year 2007 40.397 Spaniards went to vote but less than 3.000 Europeans.

On the 01.03.2010 there were 3.563 European citizens with the right to vote in Orihuela. This figure represents only 11,8% of all those foreign citizens which are actually registered at the Town Hall.

This is a very amazing and also frightening fact which shows clearly that there is a strong need of information regarding this matter.
Being registered at the Padrón does not automatically mean to be able to vote. When getting registered at the Town Hall in theory you should also be asked if you want to participate in the Municipal Elections. It might be that this is not always asked, or that the form is not handed out automatically, or that the European person who registers does not understand the question, or, or, or. We do not want to be mean, so we do not think that is done on purpose.
Contrary to what many people think, you can vote even without receiving paperwork from Valencia, as long as you are registered in the voting list. For some reason, you might not receive your forms by post.
The essential and basic rule to be registered to vote is to ask at the Town Hall for the form to register your vote. (Inscripción en el Censo Electoral)
They will hand you out a form which you have to fill in right there. On the rear of the form you find a description in English and other languages. You hand back the form filled in and signed and that’s it. It is of course necessary to show your passport and may be also to bring a copy of it. At the present time, at Orihuela Costa town hall they do ask for your residencia, respectively your inscription in the foreign registry. If this is totally correct is doubtful, but we must admit that it makes sense to be on the foreign registry if living here permanently and legally to have a right to vote.

A few months before the election, the INE (national institute of statistics) issues a voting list where all the registered voters are listed. This list will be available at the Town Hall where everybody can check if he/she is listed. The political parties also have access to this list and will certainly be helpful to check out for you if your registration is correct. In case you are not listed but have handed in the form, or if your details are not correct, a complain form can be filled in.

When this is all done and the big day comes, your vote can contribute to initialise the change in Orihuela Costa which many of us are hoping for.

Before the last 2 elections (in 2003 and in 2007) we could notice a few problems for the European citizens to apply for their right to vote, such as PC out of order, no forms available, not enough staff, long waiting queues etc. etc. With the years these kind of problems have hopefully vanished but we suggest to all of you to register your right to vote as soon as possible and not to wait until the last minute. If you experience any problems, don’t hesitate to let us know and we will help you.

In 2007 TEN PARTIES STARTED AT THE ORIHUELA ELECTIONS!!!
The total votes were divided as follows:

Partido Popular 14 councillors 14.113 votes 44,76 %
PSOE 7 councillors 7.114 votes 22,56 %
Los Verdes 3 councillors 2.829 votes 8,97 %
Centro Liberal R. 1 councillor 1.881 votes 5,97 %
Total of 82,26 %

Total votes of the 3 above mentioned opposition parties:
11.824 votes = 37,5 %
So the not mentioned remaining 6 small political groups (this includes Claro, the political group which only acts on the coast) did get a total of 17,74 %.
Imagine what could have happened if only half of those 17,74 % would have voted for one of the three big opposition parties….. Yes, the PP would have lost their absolute majority.

REGISTRATION IN THE VOTING LIST IS POSSIBLE ONLY UNTIL THE END OF NOVEMBER THIS YEAR. REGISTRATIONS WHICH ARE DONE AFTER THIS DATE, WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR THE COMING ELECTIONS.

Transparency

It has been prooved what we all know: Orihuela's administration is not transparent.
“Transparency International España” is a society which is a global coalition against corruption (www.transparency.org or, for those who speak Spanish: www.transparencia.org.es)

On a study of 110 Town Hall administrations referring to the transparency of their work in different sectors, here are some results which confirm our doubts and thoughts:

Regarding the Global transparency, Orihuela is at nr. 91 out of 110!!!

Transparency in the relation with the citizens and the society: 108
Transparency in matters of urbanism and public work: 105
Transparency in economic and financial matters: 70
Transparency of service contracts: 88

Only “Information about administrative staff” has a slightly better result with place 51.

These results show clearly that the ruling party PP is definitely not giving the necessary transparency to their work in spite of what their spokesmen keep telling us. Already during the past years, the town hall Orihuela has always occupied one of the last places in the list of the Spanish town halls referring to the transparency of their work and we can see that little or nothing has changed.

Los Verdes want to point out that this is only a mirror of the daily situation in our town hall: Balances which are not approved, information which is never given to the councilors of the opposition parties, doubts about urbanism contracts which are already dealt with at court and a look in the latest newspapers shows us how the PP is governing.

Fiesta - Hog Roast

Saturday 26th of June Los Verdes did held a Fiesta at the Rendez-Vous Bar at Las Filipinas. The Councillors Monserrate Guillén and Manuel Gallud from Orihuela attended the fiesta together with Martina Scheurer, spokesperson of Orihuela Costa. Nearly 100 people, members, friends and neighbours of all nationalities attended the fiesta and the delicious Hog Roast.

Deficiencies in Playa Golf I

On the 25th of June I went to visit some neighbours of Playa Golf I, a residencial of 84 properties situated in the sector La Cuerda, next to Aldi.

26 of these properties are facing Calle Ciprés. This street leads to Playa Golf II and Torrezenia, joining the roundabout of the motorway entrance in La Zenia.

A street with a lot of traffic of all type, cars, taxi, lorries going along at high speed.
23 of the 26 properties situated along this street do not have any street lights and no foot path. The green area does not exist - it seems to be the empty plot situated in front of the houses.

Up to here the story sound like so many others here in the area - but there is a big difference: These properties all have their HABITATION CERTIFICATE (licencia de primera ocupación) since February 2007. The residencial was build by Grupo San José - a good friend of PP as we all know - and the Town Hall has accepted it in spite of the very clearly showing deficiencies. After the elections in 2007 the residents contacted Stefan Prokoppa, asesor of the PP, who did explain that the builder is responsable and has to finish the work and, in case he would not, the bond money would be used for it. Based on the law, a builder has one year time to do so before getting back his bond. Well there is still no footpath, no street lights and most probably Grupo San José got the ond bond back, so at the end we will all have to pay for it - as usual.This is again showing us clearly how the PP cares about us and also how efficient the work of Mr. Stefan Prokoppa is, who only seems to be there to make people sign in to the PP or organizing bikini fiestas on the beach.Los Verdes are forwarding the matter on the Pleno of July and will investigate to see what really happened there and what can be done to help the residents who do live in this dangerous situation.

Cleaned land, a little success

Based on a neighbour's request, councillor Manuel Culiañez did apply at the Town Hall for a plot of land situatd behind the Mercadona of Las Filipinas to be cleaned.

In fact as you can see from the fotos, the privatly owned place was overgrown and in very bad conditions with a high risk of fire during this hot summer. We presented the request on the 2nd of July and now, end of July, the plot has been completly cleaned by the owner. That is really a success. Now we do hope, that the Town Hall will also clean its own part which is the plot next to it as well as the overgrown footpaths.

A place at Town Hall Playa Flamenca

The opposition parties have requested several times already an office at the Town Hall Playa Flamenca. Until the day of today, thsi request has always been rejected by the PP. They told us, that in Playa Flamenca it is not a Town Hall -
ups - we must have misunderstood the word "Ayuntamiento" written in big letters at the front of the building...
We started to be present together with PSOE and CLR on the last 2 Wednesdays and starting this week, Los Verdes will be present in the Town Hall of Playa Flamenca on Friday mornings from 10.30 to 12.30 to attend all the citizens who do come to see us. The ruling party does deny us an office there, saying that the Town Hall is "full", that there is no space etc., but we will be there in the Hall to attend whoever comes in search of help or information.

Hope to see you there on one of the coming Fridays.
Let's make clear that the town hall should be for everybody, and not only for the ruling party.

Budget approved by PP only.

BUDGET 2010

Finally last week at the special pleno on Thursday the Budget 2010 has been approved with the sole votes of the PP.

Here some details of it:

As you know Orihuela town has one third of the inhabitants, and Orihuela Costa also has one third, the last third are the citizens living in suburbs like Torremendo, La Murada etc.
The investment for Orihuela town is 4,3 million euros. For the Coast it is 700.000 euros. From Los Verdes we are strongly criticising this, especially as the Coast is the most important tourist focus of the municipality. This again shows very clearly that our ruling party PP is only interested in the votes of the Coast, but not in the real necessities of the area.
From Los Verdes we made a number of specific requests for Orihuela Costa to be included in the budget, such as
- a Youth Center
- Adaptation of the parks and roundabouts with so called "zerojardinería" (zero gardening, proposition of Los Verdes of 2007, approved by PP but it never came to action) local plants, easy to maintain and with a very low cost.
- Improvement of the accessibility of the beaches
- Children's play ground in Campoamor
- Offices at the Town Hall in Playa Flamenca for the opposition parties
- Improvement of the street signs and many more.
The full list ist published here on the blog.

ALL THIS HAS BEEN DENIED BY OUR RULING PARTY PP.

We from Los Verdes want to offer a different way of "ruling" Orihuela and we are convinced that the time is there to regenerate the way Orihuela is managed.