By Jason Moore
THE Spanish government in Madrid have recently woken up to the value of the so-called foreign vote. For many years it appeared that the socialist party were not interested in foreigners voting in regional polls. But this is a different foreign vote. Legislation has recently been passed which will mean that thousands of citizens from outside the European Union will be able to vote in the next local elections. The majority come from South America so in-otherwords thousands of so-called immigrant workers will soon be able to vote. All good news because as these people live and work here they should be entitled to vote. When the non Spanish Europeans (us!) got the vote there were some in the socialist party who said that the majority of Europeans from outside Spain living here would be voting for centre-right parties. They believed (quite wrongly) that we had all retired to the sun with big incomes and therefore would be more likely to favour non-socialist parties. What complete rubbish. Will these same people now say that the so-called immigrant vote is more likely to support the socialists than more right-wing parties? All foreigners who live here legally should have the right to vote in local polls and it is ridiculous that people should try and single out their voting intentions before they have actually voted.
THE NEW FOREIGN VOTE