Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 09:58 Leo Olivero

The Gibraltar EU electorate who polled in at not quite 40% was a surprisingly high one considering all various circumstances and the fact; this particular demonstration of EU democracy was the expected anti-climax both in Gibraltar and the UK that mirrored the present Brexit crises and the even deeper divisions across the European continent!

Considering this was the ninth European parliament election since they began in 1979 where generally, where voter turnout has dropped across Europe each time, hitting 43% in 2014 (although 2019 EU turnout figures not available at time of preparing this report).

However, put into context I believe there is reason to be pleased that Gibraltar did it’s bit, even though we are leaving the EU 40% of us marked their presence, the best way they knew how, the other 60% of the local electorate stuck two fingers up to the conniving anti-Gibraltar EU practices... and that in a nutshell is the long and the short of it!

EU Election Campaign Badly Organised Confused Many People

Locally, I suspect more people would probably have voted last Thursday if the EU election had been organised more effectively, with clear campaign messages pitched at our unique circumstances for such a small community who has been bashed from pillar-to-post, not only by our political neighbour resident in Madrid, but the quite hopeless political organisation based in Brussels.

How did candidates expect the local electorate to support or vote for them or in my case, waste time turning out to vote when, many people on the day, and outside polling stations did not know who was who, or who they were voting for. I witnessed this for myself when I visited some polling stations but not to vote!

I repeat, the so-called EU democratic electoral exercise last Thursday was in my opinion a complete waste of time. But many other people ‘the undecided’s’ may have benefitted by a far more skillfully planned pre-EU election campaign with clear messages, which may have helped more people to decide to leave the homes and make a beeline to the polling stations.

The whole EU campaign from a Gibraltar perspective was late in the day, badly prepared, rushed job with UK candidates arriving having a quick walk along Main St and some photographs with the Rock in the background for political prosperity. Our own politicians made their own late calls requesting people to vote. But if anything, our own political voices did not come across strongly but had a distinctive meek tone about it.

All...must have been a confusing mess to many people, not really knowing who the candidates really were, where they were in Gibraltar they going to campaign, when they arrived on the Rock, what was their message to the people of Gibraltar, apart from ‘vote for me’.

So considering the right old mess of a political electoral campaign...

A 40% Gibraltar Turnout Was Pretty Damn Good:

Well-done Gibraltar the EU Did Not Deserve It!!!