Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin May 26

FEATURED ARTICLES: "Dramatic floods cause widespread damage in southern Spain" and "Voter fraud overshadows Spanish election this weekend"

It never rains but it pours, and this week in Spain that is as true for the weather as it is for political scandals.

As the country prepares to go to the polls this weekend to vote in the first of two major elections this year, there are fears that a mixture of the torrential rain and the series of shocking political manoeuvres that have been revealed this week will keep people away from the ballot boxes, and could end up having a significant effect on what the country looks like (and where its money is spent!) over the next four years…

Let’s dive in!

Cuando marzo mayea, mayo marcea

There are many Spanish idioms about the weather (believe it or not, they’re as obsessed with it as the Brits are said to be), but one in particular springs to mind this wet week in May: ‘Cuando marzo mayea, mayo marcea’.

This saying basically means that when we have May-like weather in March, then we have March-like weather in May!

That couldn’t be truer for this year, as we had glorious warm sunshine and a too-dry March that left us with drought conditions in Spain. Now, in May, we are getting torrential rainfall, thunderstorms and hail… but it’s still not enough to relieve the drought and refill the reservoirs fully!

The problem, really, is that when it rains, it pours. We desperately needed the rain for our gardens, farms and water reserves, but not all in one go!

When it chucks it down like this, we see the basements of houses flooded and roads closed because huge pools of water make them impassable. We see waterways overflowing. We see vehicles needing to be towed and drivers in need of rescue when they become stranded or they are washed away by sudden flash floods. We see schools needing to be closed for the day to ensure that children and families don’t go outside or use the roads when it’s not safe.

In Murcia, dozens of roads needed to be closed earlier this week as torrents of rain caused flooding in the cities of Cartagena and Lorca. The town of Molina de Segura made national news after a video went viral online of a mother with her child in a pushchair trying to cross a street which a flash flood had turned into a raging current.

The woman can be seen trying to make her way to the other side but the force of the current, predictably, makes her lose her balance and tips the pushchair over. The child, around 2 or 3 years old, falls out and is almost washed away downstream but for the quick thinking of a hero bystander who sweeps the child up and carries them to safety.

In Alicante, the bulk of the province took a battering and emergency services were stretched as torrential rain caused widespread flooding. Schools in more than 20 municipalities were closed due to the risk of flooding and Alicante University suspended classes for 24 hours. Roads were gridlocked or impassable, with at least half a dozen motorways and dual carriageways throwing early morning traffic flow into disarray.

In just 12 hours, up to 127.4 litres per m2 of rainfall accumulated in Ontinyent, 56.9 Alicante-Elche Airport, and 40 in Torrevieja. In Alcoy, the Red Cross shelter was open for 24 hours to deal with the aftermath of the adverse conditions and the repercussions of further downpours which have proved relentless in parts of the province.

The heaviest of the rain was in Cuevas de Almanzora in Almería, where up to 340 litres of water per square metre fell, overloading the water management systems in the town. One man even went missing for a while, but thankfully he was found unharmed shortly afterwards.

It might be hard to believe given the rain that’s been crashing down around our ears all week, but Spain is still on track to record the driest spring in history. This is according to Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), who explained that the Levante area of Spain, which broadly includes regions such as Murcia, Valencia and Andalucía, has been hardest hit by the storms.

The coming weekend is set to be just as drab and dreary as the rest of the week but despite this, the period from March 1 to May 21 has been the driest since records began in 1961, with just 48 litres of rain per square metre overall.

We have to go back to the spring of 1995 to find the nearest contender, and this year was still far wetter with 86 litres of rain. The average for a normal season is 180 litres per square metre, so even with the recent storms, 2023 is still considered a “very dry” spring.

Sadly, the dreary weather forecast will do little to alleviate the drought, in the expert’s opinion, although the rain will certainly help water levels somewhat in the reservoirs along the Mediterranean coast. However, in Spain as a whole, between October 1 last year and May 21 of 2023, just 360 litres of water per square metre has been collected, compared to the usual 504 litres.

This is a disappointing 28% below normal.

Local elections in Spain this weekend

This weekend, the country goes to the polls. On Sunday May 28, Spanish citizens who wish to do so, as well as any European citizens and the foreign nationals resident in Spain whose countries have an agreement to do so, may cast their votes for who they wish to be their next mayor and local councillors in their Ayuntamiento town halls.

That’s assuming that people will actually brave the rain to go out and vote. There are fears that the democratic process could be disrupted as people choose to stay dry and warm at home rather than risk the rains outside.

The last widespread municipal elections in Spain were in 2019, and this current round of votes will determine who rules the roosts locally for the next four years. While we will know the results of the vote shortly after all the ballots are counted, in just a couple of days, the new legislatures will not start until around three weeks later, on June 18.

Everyone is holding their breath to see if the far-right VOX will finally get some real numbers on the board in terms of seats, or whether the far-left Podemos will cling onto power, or to what extent the PP conservatives and the PSOE labour party – the old guard – will continue with business as usual, doing things the way they’ve always been done.

While it may seem like an essentially Spanish affair, the results of these elections will have a real effect on the foreign nationals who live in Spain as immigrants and those who just visit on holiday. Whether you despise them or merely dislike them, elected politicians have the power to make some important changes that affect our everyday lives as foreigners in Spain.

Incredibly, though (or perhaps not so incredibly), most foreigners here who have the right to vote don’t even bother and take very little interest in politics, believing it has nothing to do with them. For instance, across Spain only 36,543 of the 400,000 British nationals who are legal residents here have registered to vote in these elections – less than 10%.

In Murcia, where foreigners make up almost 15% of the population, just 1 in every 20 of them can vote. As such, they make up just 1% of the total number of voters, when they could make up so much more.

Anyone who is a European citizen may vote in the elections, as well as those from Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Colombia, Korea, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad & Tobago, and from the United Kingdom provided they registered their intent to do so by last January.

Notably, Moroccans, Ukrainians, Russians, Senegalese, Nigerians and Kenyans – all of whom make up a large proportion of the foreign population here in Spain – are excluded from the electoral process even if they are residents and do not have the right to choose their municipal leaders.

The right to vote in representative democratic elections is not gifted equally to everyone in society, although the outcome affects everyone. Like it or not – whether you are standing for office yourself in these elections (in which case, best of luck!) or you revile the whole business as a crooked charade – the truth is that those who can vote have a responsibility to look out for the welfare of the community as a whole, and to use the political tools at their disposal to ensure that everyone is cared for, comfortable and kept in mind.

If you’re planning to vote this Sunday, remember to consider which candidates really have the interests of the foreign community in Spain, and your community, at heart.

Is Spain a racist country?

In fact, the treatment of foreigners is an issue that has come to the fore in a rather unexpected way this week: via football. Real Madrid player Vinicíus Jr from Brazil, tired of what he calls repeated racist attacks, has labelled Spain a racist country and his native land has backed calls for LaLiga to apologise and stop being so racist.

In the run-up to the elections, politicians are variously scrambling to insist that Spain is not, in fact, a racist country, or else to apologise for the systemic racism built into the nation’s institutions – not only football – and to promise to be less racist in future.

Whether, as a foreigner in Spain, you perceive it to be a racist country or not will, to a large degree, depend on your country of origin, your race, and how often you deal directly with Spanish people, and in what context.

Conveniently, the government has announced at the same time the draft bill for a law on combatting racism that could give out fines of up to half a million euros for racist behaviour. However, this law has actually been in the works for several years now and, despite the renewed interest, there is no sign of it being passed through Congress any time soon.

Vote fixing

In the public imagination, even amongst Spaniards, Spanish politicians are deemed to be inordinately corrupt… even more so than your average politician elsewhere in the world.

It’s tempting, in the interests of not being racist, to try to dispel this as a myth, a cruel and stereotypical view of Spanish society. But events in Melilla, Almería and Murcia this week make it hard to keep a straight face whilst trying to claim that Spanish politicians are honest and trustworthy.

The first dodgy dealings to come to light were flagged in the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, an exclave surrounded entirely by Morocco, where several people were arrested this Tuesday for trying to buy postal votes.

In Melilla, people who turn up at their local Post Office to cast their vote don’t have to provide any kind of ID, which seems a bit bizarre. But this gave the election fraudsters the ideal opportunity to target vulnerable and low-income citizens, who offered them money to hand over their postal voting documents.

In addition to Tuesday’s arrests, two weeks ago at least five assaults on postmen in Melilla were reported, with the attackers trying to steal electoral papers.

Next came the town of Mojácar in Almería, Andalucía, where seven people were arrested, including two candidates for the PSOE Socialist party, for allegedly trying to pay up to 200 euros per person to low-income Nicaraguan and Ecuadorian citizens living in the town to vote for them.

The suspects are even said to have offered ‘extra commissions’ of 50 euros for referrals – a bonus payment if they got their acquaintances and relatives to vote for them too – and promised to find these people jobs if they got into power.

Then it was the turn of Albudeite in the Region of Murcia, where another PSOE mayoral candidate was arrested on suspicion of almost exactly the same kind of electoral fraud. In this case, it seems that police learned of the existence of the plot while conducting an entirely different investigation into drug trafficking, and early indications are that the wannabe politicians offered drugs as payment to addicts in return for their votes.

An absolute mess from start to finish. The Socialists are trying to distance themselves from the scandal, labelling them isolated incidents and accusing their main rivals, the PP, of a smear campaign against them. The PP themselves are not immune from controversy, having apparently conspired to cover up fraud and wrongdoing by the brother of the President of the Community of Madrid.

The long and short of it is that – shock, horror! – politicians are not infallible angels but are actually scheming, self-interested mortals. Whichever of them gains the power this weekend to rule our towns and stuff their pockets, let’s make sure it’s at least the lesser of all evils.

Murcia

Around the Mar Menor, it’s been announced that, as of next month, there will be three small boats running between Santiago de la Ribera and the Puerto de Tomás Maestre port as a replacement for the ferry which – suddenly and without explanation – ceased operations last December.

The La Manga ferry used to be exceedingly popular in both summer and winter, shuttling tourists and locals across the water in a short but scenic trip. San Javier council paid 75,000 euros a year to the company that used to run it, and then one day about five months ago the company just stopped the ferry service without any warning.

Obviously, the town council has refused to give them any more money until the service starts again. In the meantime, they’ve decided to replace the ferry with three small boats which they’re calling ‘sea taxis’. The only problem is that, where the ferry used to be able to carry 70 passengers, the new smaller boats can hold just 12 people each, making a total of 36 between the three of them, barely more than half the previous capacity.

Still, it will be nice to have the option to ride across the Mar Menor on this affordable and pleasant journey once again, although the schedule has yet to be announced.

Another schedule that has not yet been announced is that of the free public buses which are to connect Corvera Airport with Murcia city and Cartagena this summer. It has been confirmed that there will be buses starting this June 5 and lasting until the end of September, but so far we don’t know how many buses there will be each day and whether they will line up with the inbound and outbound flights as poorly as they did last year.

What we do know is that, for the time being, there are no plans to expand the direct bus service to San Javier, Los Alcázares, Mazarrón or any of the other popular coastal destinations that passengers arriving at the airport usually like to travel to.

It’s a start in the right direction for the poor blighted airport, which still has not recovered to its pre-Covid passenger numbers, but many will feel that four months of buses that only go to the Region’s two largest cities is simply not enough, even if they are free.

If it’s any consolation, travellers can now purchase one of the 20,000 tickets on sale by airline Volotea for flights between Murcia Airport and Madrid and Barcelona for just 50 euros, a price that could drop as low as 19 euros if paired with other promotions.

While the flights are on sale now, the twice-weekly routes won’t begin operating until December. Good if you fancy sorting out a Christmas or New Year break to the Spanish capital this far in advance!

If you prefer to stay close to the ground, from next year you’ll have more rail options between Murcia and Madrid as low-cost train operator Ouigo has announced plans to connect the Region of Murcia with the Spanish capital from 2024.

It’s part of a massive push by newcomer Ouigo, along with Iryo, to gain a share of the market that has previously been dominated by Spanish state-owned rail company Renfe, part of which involves offering train tickets for as little as 9 euros each way, as opposed to Renfe’s prices which can be ten times this. Renfe has also been criticised for not offering enough high-speed trains to and from Madrid, making their new AVE connection a bit of a damp squib.

You don’t need to go all the way to Madrid to have some fun, though. You can get world-class entertainment right here in Murcia, such as seeing Iron Maiden in concert at the Enrique Roca stadium just outside the city of Murcia on July 20 – the first time they are performing in the Region of Murcia since 2005!

Check out our EVENTS DIARY for more events coming up in the Region of Murcia:

Spain

If the recent spell of bad weather hasn’t put you off travelling to Spain then a new and highly controversial government proposal might give you pause for thought. This week, the Podemos party has assured that it will limit the purchase of housing by foreigners and non-residents in all the municipalities where they are given power through the elections.

The proposal has raised more than a few eyebrows but it’s actually nothing very new: the government of the Balearic Islands has been petitioning the European Commission to implement similar restrictions for years now, and just last month the same left-wing party failed to gain approval for an amendment that would limit the number of tourist rentals on offer in the busiest and most stressed destinations.

Expats needn’t be overly concerned though, since Article 63 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU prohibits banning foreigners from buying property in all but the most extreme situations.

According to Mairead McGuinness, the European Commissioner for Financial Services, exceptions are only granted if the restrictions are justified for reasons of public order or security, or reasons of general public interest.

Currently, only four countries have been allowed to apply restrictions on home buying by non-residents: Malta, Denmark, Finland and Croatia. Beyond the borders of the EU, Canada famously banned non-nationals from purchasing property when house prices doubled between 2010 and the end of 2021. Australia and New Zealand have also imposed restrictions on non-residents.

easyJet passengers taking off from the UK for a holiday in Spain were very impressed last weekend when they were joined in coach by veritable British royalty. Former rugby player and husband of Zara Phillips, the last Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter, Mike Tindell was filmed as he stowed his hand luggage away on a recent budget flight to Spain.

The footage has since racked up many comments on social media, most of which express surprise that such a high-profile British figure would fly economy on a budget airline.

“He has the most powerful family in the world, why isn’t he on his own plane?” one TikTok user asked, while another praised him for getting a “standard flight,” pointing out that private planes “are bad for the planet.”

@kaseycaulfield1 see you @ glitterbox mike 💃🥳🌴 #fyp #ibiza #miketindall #coronation #royalfamily ♬ original sound - KASE ❤️‍🔥

The British press has been quick to point out that the royals are well known for booking budget holidays: Prince William, Kate and their three children flew to Balmoral in 2019 with FlyBe, paying around 80 euros a head. This was shortly after Harry and Meghan chartered a private jet four times in 11 days.

The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) issued a hair-raising warning this week that caused more than a few sniggers. The road safety authorities alerted the public to the fact that they have been made aware of a new scam people are employing to cheat the notoriously difficult driver theory test.

This is a written exam that must be taken to secure a Spanish licence, and by now the DGT have seen it all: candidates paying others to take the test for them, those who scribble the answers on their arms and legs and even a few memorable occasions when students smuggled answers into the exam room written in invisible ink.

But the latest scam, known as the ‘toupee trick’, takes the biscuit. Essentially, people taking their driving licence theory test don a wig that covers their ears and hide a tiny microphone or camera inside. The student can then relay the questions on the exam paper to an accomplice outside the building, who feeds back the correct answers.

Strangely enough, cheating in the exam isn’t actually considered a crime but the creator of this ingenious scheme, a 24-year-old Chinese national who took his test in Guadalajara, was banned from sitting the exam for six months when he was caught cheating.

Join our Driving in Spain Facebook group for all the latest motoring and travel news

In other news, the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has won the Literature prize in the Premio Princesa de Asturias 2023, an annual Spanish culture award that recognises international achievements in many fields.

Other candidates such as British writer Julian Barnes and French writer Pierre Michon lost out to Murakami, author of such novels as Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore and IQ84.

This is the 43rd year the Princesa de Asturias awards have been running, and Murakami is the first Japanese author to win the in the Literature category, while Meryl Streep has already been named winner in the ‘Arts’ category.

Alicante

In great news for air travel on the Costa Blanca, budget carrier easyJet announced further expansion plans in Spain with a new seasonal base at Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández airport.

Operational from spring 2024, this will be the airline’s fourth base in Spain and 30th on its European network. The new base will create around 100 direct jobs for pilots and crew as well as other indirect local jobs.

The new seasonal base will have three A320 aircraft based at the Costa Blanca terminal, each with a capacity to carry 186 passengers, which will allow the airline to offer 1.62 million seats in its first operational summer next year – a 16% growth.

Most households are feeling the pinch as the cost of living continues to rise, but one man’s attempts to save a buck on meat could cost him up to 1.2 million euros in fines after police discovered a dead pig in the back of his van.

During a routine security check on the AP7 in Torrevieja, officers discovered a suspicious package in the boot of a small van, and on inspection, realised it was the corpse of a domestic pig whose meat was destined for human consumption.

The driver couldn’t prove the origin of the animal, nor its hygienic sanitary condition, and lacked any veterinary proof of its demise. In addition, the dead animal was being transported in a vehicle that didn’t comply with technical and hygienic-sanitary measures, posing a potential risk to public health.

Technology has proved invaluable to unearthing cave paintings believed to be around 7,000 years old in Alicante. A drone deployed by archaeologists has captured incredible footage of paintings in Penáguila, a site of “great value” with Neolithic paintings uncovered in several caves difficult to access on foot.

The area is located in the Barranquet del Castellet-Barranc del Salt and Port de Penáguila area, and according to the archaeologists, “one of the most relevant sites of Neolithic cave art documented in the Valencian Community in recent decades”.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, get over to Zenia Boulevard shopping centre when there’s a break in the rain and you can go shopping for second-hand clothes at a pop-up charity shop.

Only open until Saturday May 27, the vintage clothes market will raise money for the charity Help at Home Costa Blanca. Check it out!

You can now join the Costa Blanca What’s On and Where to Go Facebook group to see more events coming up in the area!

Andalucía

Foreigners in Spain’s southern Andalucía region have been having a tough time of it this week.

In Malaga, two Ukrainian women were forced to dive into the Limonero reservoir to escape from a group of four young men who were harassing them, trying to assault them and throw stones at them.

The women, aged 22 and 24, were taking a hike along the shore of the picturesque reservoir when the gang began to threaten them. One of the women received a severe blow to the head and was even thrown into the water. Her friend jumped in after her to try to escape from the attackers.

The pair eventually managed to get hold of the emergency services, who came out and rescued them in a boat before chasing after the bullies.

In Granada’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, a German hiker who disappeared six months ago was found dead in a ravine.

The 32-year-old German man had been missing in Granada since last November, and his frozen corpse was discovered buried in a block of ice by hikers. It’s thought that the poor man had tried to seek shelter in the gully after suffering a fall, and was unable to get back out.

At the time, a large-scale search and rescue mission the man’s wallet and mobile phone, but inclement weather meant the search for the man himself had to be called off. This latest discovery brings the total number of foreign deaths in the Granada mountains this skiing season to four.

A Frenchman wanted for rape in his home country was picked up by Spanish police in the Malaga resort of Torremolinos during a routine vehicle control checkpoint. The 29-year-old French motorist was caught driving without a licence, and a further background check revealed there was a European Arrest and Surrender order issued against him for several counts of gender violence, rape and repeated death threats towards his partner.

Finally, in Seville, climate activists have been stepping up their opposition to the regional government’s plans to legalise irregular irrigation of strawberry farms at the parched and protected Doñana National Park.

A group of protestors from Scientific Rebellion chained themselves to Seville Cathedral to raise awareness of the “ecocide” facing the park due to a plan to expand legally irrigated farmland around the nature reserve, whose flamingos and other protected species are already suffering the effects of severe and prolonged drought.

The dramatic demonstration lasted less than an hour as firefighters cut the chains of the protestors and police booked them.

Un grupo de activistas de @EsRebelCientif se encadena por el cuello a la catedral de Sevilla en defensa de Doñana y para alertar sobre los impactos de la emergencia climática. Bravo. 👏🏿✊🏿 #DoñanaResiste pic.twitter.com/z3dlGjmlM5
— Tom Kucharz (@tomkucharz) May 21, 2023

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So that was this eventful week in Spain! Stay safe out there this weekend, wherever you are, and remember politics isn’t just something done by a select, elect few. Your contribution to politics is not limited to voting once every four years then wiping your hands of it. We are all politicians, and the creation of harmonious coexistence in our society is a political act we engage in every single day.

See you next time!