Sánchez agreed in Melilla with the Islamist Aberchán while being convicted of fraud in voting by mail

The controversy over vote fraud by mail is not new to Melilla and it also has implications for the Socialist Party of Pedro Sánchez. In 2018, the Provincial Court of Malaga condemned to the leader of Coalition for Melilla, Mustafa Aberchanand the former general secretary of the PSOE of Melilla, Dionysus Munozby two electoral crimes and one of falsehood, by organizing a plot to convince citizens, in exchange for employment, to request the vote by mail and deliver the envelope to them. Later, the convicts put the ballot for their joint candidacy for the Senate and delivered it to the Post Office. Despite the sentence, in 2019 the PSOE agreed to the Government of Melilla with this party and its convicted leader, thus ousting the popular Juan Jose Imbroda after 19 years in power. By virtue of this pact, he was invested president Edward de Castrodeputy for Ciudadanos, with eight votes from the Coalition for Melilla and four from the PSOE.

The Government of Melilla was made up of three advisers from the Coalition for Melilla, two from the PSOE -with the general secretary of the party, Gloria Rojas, as vice president- and one from Ciudadanos. Aberchán, convicted, attended the inauguration sitting in the front row, although due to his legal situation he was left out of the Government.

In February 2021, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence for Aberchán and the socialist Muñoz for buying votes. According to the sentence, which sentenced another 15 people, the defendants took advantage of the mail-in voting system to commit the fraud. In this way, “the envelope with the electoral documentation that the voter would receive could be delivered to a third person, who could choose the corresponding political option to later deliver the vote at the Post Office, which would send it to the corresponding polling station.” According to the ruling, “the subsidized parties had contacts in the Postal Service who could provide them with access to said envelopes.” In exchange, the convicts promised jobs, being hired with preference in the employment plans. The PP exercised the private accusation.

CpM partner shoemaker

On January 26, 2008, the then socialist leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, personally signed an electoral pact with the leader of CpM, Mustafa Aberchan that has extended its journey until the Sánchez era. Both acronyms merged into one for the elections, they attended the general elections together on March 8 of that year. Zapatero brought Aberchán to Madrid to, with pageantry and deference to the man from Melilla, boast of an alliance in style. of witnesses were jose whitethe heads of list to the Congress and the Senate for Melilla, gregory escobar y Mari Cruz Escribano, and the general secretary of the PSOE in the autonomous city, Dionysus Munoz.

The operation transcended the local sphere. In an election in which Zapatero played it, with the crisis on its heels, the seats in Melilla had a reinforced interest. And the facts showed that, behind that pact, there was a fraudulent strategy aimed at buying votes. It is an undoubted fact included in a final sentence: the pact was signed on January 26, the campaign began a few weeks later and the appointment with the polls was on March 8.

Obviously, due to an elementary question of time, of calendar, a plan for the massive purchase of votes by mail like the one carried out in Melilla, necessarily had to be planned when the PSOE and CpM signed the pact in Madrid, endorsed personally by Rodríguez Zapatero. Even more so if, as was proven after the trial, both socialist members and members of the Coalition for Melilla were involved in the plot.

And another fact: the State Administration was key to paying those who bought their votebecause the reward was to guarantee them income through employment plans financed by the State together with the autonomous city.

national power

The signs of crime were so evident, with a soaring and abnormal increase in vote by mail –base of fraud–that the proceedings did not take long to start once the elections were over, in which Zapatero’s PSOE revalidated the Moncloa thanks, among others, to the profits obtained in Melilla.

In 2015, the judicial instruction came to request a total of 231 years in prison for the 30 members of the PSOE and CpM who had been charged with buying votes.

The court ruling came on November 20, 2018. The Audience of Melilla He sentenced 18 of the defendants for buying votes. The one who was general secretary of the PSOE in Melilla, Dionisio Muñoz, present in the Zapatero pact, was sentenced to two years in prison. The other great protagonist of the pact, Mustafa Aberchán, of the CpM, to another two years in prison.

New case

A case reminiscent of the one that today, on the eve of 28M, shakes Melilla again. This Tuesday, the Police arrested ten people for their relationship with a new plot of fraud in voting by mail, which is already being investigated by a court. Among the detainees were the counselor of the Coalition for Melilla and number three of the party, Mohamed Ahmed Al Laland the son-in-law of Aberchán himself, Abdel-ilah Nourdine Ahmed. Both were released after giving a statement and waiting to be summoned by the judge leading the investigation.

The investigation focuses on determining whether the plot bought votes for amounts ranging between 50 and 200 euros and whether it bribed Post Office officials to take votes from Melilla, distributing them later to other offices in the north of Spain and from there to the polling stations. . Voting by mail has skyrocketed in Melilla, from 4,200 applications in the 2019 elections to the current 1,1,700, practically triple.

In addition to the arrests, the agents of the National Police have carried out in the last hours different searches in a dozen premises, between homes and offices. Among them, a property used by the Coalition for Melilla for communication issues. The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, on Tuesday demanded explanations from Sánchez for his pacts.

«Sánchez is photographed by his partners again. Number 3 of the Coalition for Melilla is a government advisor with the PSOE of Melilla. The PSOE must give explanations about its present and future pacts. How can they maintain a government with those investigated for buying votes? Would you agree with them again?”, said the leader popular.

From the PSOE, for their part, they assure that after the elections next Sunday they will not agree “with any party that is immersed in buying votes.” The leader of the party in Melilla, Gloria Rojas, has ruled out, however, assessing whether this will be a red line to agree, although she has indicated that it will be “a very important problem.” However, she has urged to wait for the investigation to end. given the “uncertainty” that currently exists in Melilla.