Thursday, March 28

The extreme right of Don Benito now waves the ‘no’ to the merger with Villanueva

More than a month after the residents of Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena majority decided to start the process of merging the two Extremaduran cities, a group of people opposed to the union have created the platform ‘Always Don Benito’, denouncing the campaign carried out and various irregularities in the counting of the votes.

The platform, chaired by Yiye Álvarez, was presented this Saturday at the Plaza de España de Don Benito in an act attended by between “200 and 300 people”, according to the National Police. The concentration was attended by some members of Vox, such as Santiago Merino, and the youtuber Isaac Parejo, openly opposed to the left and in favor of the right-wing ideology. However, the platform’s spokespersons maintain that its members are “ordinary citizens.”

The assistants have carried flags of Don Benito and banners where they asked for the resignation of the mayor, the socialist José Luis Quintana.

Parejo has opened the act accusing the councilors of the two cities of “laughing” at the citizens and of creating “a grotesque and a circus at the cost of thousands of euros”. In addition, he has assured that both Quintana and the mayor of Villanueva, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, initiated the merger by “order from above”, in reference to the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, with the purpose of “serving the PSOE”.

For his part, Álvarez explained the reasons for the creation of the platform, such as the informative campaign in favor of the “partial and non-transparent” ‘yes’ vote, which has cost 500,000 euros, he pointed out, and in which they hid the inconveniences, such as the change of identity, the new name, the changes in regulations and the urban model.

The president of ‘Siempre Don Benito’ has also denounced that during the counting of the votes on February 20, “irregularities” were committed, such as the way in which the result was calculated. The goal was for the ‘yes’ vote to reach at least 66% in each city. In Villanueva de la Serena a support of over 90% was achieved, but in Don Benito it remained at 66.27%. The platform assures that the necessary positive votes were not reached because to obtain the percentage, not all the votes cast were taken into account, but only the valid ones. For this reason, the members of the platform are collecting money to denounce the City Council.



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