How the Andorrans voted and "not voted"

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Sunday April 24, 2005 13:43

by endevant!

a lesson to us all.

Andorra is a small country, official language catalan, which sits in the pyrennes between Catalonia and France.
It's a great place to hide papyrus, do banking, buy cheap tobacco, ski, and pick wild flowers.

Today it's 16,022 registered voters have been called to exercise their democratic right to vote, regardless of ethnicity (they're all andorran), gender, creed, in secret, and they don't get their thumbs inked, so you don't know if an andorran has voted by looking at their paw afterwards.

the Liberal Party of Andorra held the government with 15 seats, against the three other parties the social democratic party 6, the democratic party 5 and uniólauradianna 2 at the last elections in 2001.

There are 28 seats in the Andorran executive.

So far over 40% of voters have exercised their franchise, so it looks like being completely legitimate. one of the seven administrative regions (they're called parishes) has recorded 69% participation at mid-day, which just goes to prove microstates seem to have more genuine democratic participation. But when you consider the resident population is 70,000 approx it means lots of andorrans "don't vote".

Jimmy Carter isn't there though to point out this unfairness. He only does big states.

The parties competing for this years general election are -

The Liberals
The Social Democrats
The Democrats
The XXI party
The Greens
The democratic reform party

The Andorrans are pretty much like anyone else.
They have websites and television, and have good food. They are a mysterious mountainous sexy people, with a beautiful and ancient language (which technically isn't theirs). That's because they forgot their ancestral tongue, after it was beaten out of them by catalan monks and nuns and troubadours in the XIII century.

here is an andorran website which declares today's election to be "the moment of truth"
http://www.bondia.ad/artman/publish/article_2721.shtml
Just to prove that they still meddle in the affairs of their neighbours here is a catalan news-site offering an election special
http://www.vilaweb.com/www/noticia?p_idcmp=1257324

here is the official government election result site-
http://www.eleccions.ad/

here is the official state site-
http://www.andorra.ad/

here is the indymedia site which in our unique style confuses the frontier issues by sharing its psycho-geography with "la seu d' urgell" a region of the catalan pyrennes with the same sort of social and ecological problems. You will note it gets lots of flotsam and "spam" sort of articles that get edited elsewhere. This is very useful. You might remember the last time we had problems with the FBI ("project why don't you fuck off now agent smith") I put on my merrovinginvanjan hat and told you they were after the list of ------ which was there, and that's why they fucked up its server longer than anyone elses, but no-one believed me they blamed the swiss and mossad and berlusconi instead.

http://andorra.indymedia.org/
http://laseudurgell.indymedia.org/

the results of this crucial and pivotal election will appear in the comments tonight or tomorrow with expert comment and analysis on how this will effect Europe, peace in the middle east, the search for WMD, and the cost of ski-ing weekends.

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Comments (4 of 4)

supplement to "the sunday papers "Euler's edition" * (9/7/06)"

by iosaf mac diarmada (reporting) (blessed by papal + plenary - indulgence for somedays grace as long as I don't............

Sun Jul 09, 2006 20:40

excellent background orientated coverage of the Mexican Presidential elections 2006 from zapatista networks since last Sunday.

written in spanish with links to relevant mexican media & chiapas imc.
"eleciones a la mexicana" the series
1 - http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/265118/...x.php
2 - http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/265299/...x.php
3 - http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/265459

* the authorship of Sunday Papers and right to be identified as the creator of same is me.
I do this stuff. Me. ok? & all rights relating to same are protected with vigour by international conventions, incorporated national law, and scary people.

As long as you read them properly and follow the instructions... you too U2 & you who
may live or die to appreciate the value of a papal indulgence. & as we ought know if interested in the affairs of the EZLN and their communities known as the "territory of the good government", they've collected quite a few indulgences.

nos conocemos
(.:. +)

a real life mexican zapatista listening to the radio recently. very relaxed. homely atmosphere. idyllic existence.

As the andorrans go to work "the above comments sink in"

by consequences

Mon Apr 25, 2005 09:56

this morning, there can be only very few whose who think their lives will remain unchanged or unaffected by the great changes modernisation and constitutional democracy have brought them.-
For only the third time in over 900 years, the sleepy hamlet, cheap tobacco smoking, banking, skiing, pick flowers in spring time, sex rugged mountain dwellers with the beautiful languages, have celebrated an election just like you get in Ireland, where the majority of inhabitants didn't vote.

MANIPULATION OF DATA

as any school child can see, over 54,000 andorrans didn't have a right to vote yesterday, so it's a big whopping lie to say participation was over 80%.
The neighbouring nation without a state la seu d'urgell (ruling party maoist-maulets) has urged its internet activists to raise this matter at the next meeting of the UN security council failing that at chingwag swap tartan probably in brittany in august.
The social democrats for their part, in an attempt to hold face in the mounting crises in the mountainous medieval tobacco market, are now openly regretting the discussion of pre-election pacts by their leader, arguing they would have won more of the crucial first time urban all roads and buses lead to it capital village Andorra Vell.

The markets appear for the moment to be holding steady, there have been at opening trading across the floors of Europe no obvious shock at the lurch to the little bit off of centre left, and financial analysts still recommend investing in cigarettes.

an andorran flag in andorra this morning

Great disappointment at participation.

by !-)

Mon Apr 25, 2005 07:20

Andorran democracy is reeling this morning from the news that only 80.4% of the 16,022 registered voters of approx 72,000 inhabitants voted yesterday.
This a complete 0.2% down on the 2001 poll.
Local commentators are blaming the weather for this increase in apathy.

The results have meant a loss of complete control of the assembly by the Liberal party, who though faring well in traditionally liberal parishes, saw their lead curtailed with the counting of the vote at the capital town Andorra la Vell.

The leader of the Andorran liberals who have ruled the hamlet filled - snows in winter - everyone speaks catalan statelet has thus confirmed that andorrans "want change".

Just how far change can go in the utterly untroubled - very flowery in spring - cheap tobacco - medieval prinicapilty remains to be seen.

One andorran (who refused to give their name) blamed the uncertainty on the formation "democratic centre andorra XXI century" who garnered 10.99% of the votes, and has never supported union with France or armed struggle with Catalonia over the thorny Vall de Sant Julia de Loria question, which still hasn't been asked.

Others were quick to point out that the weather had been exceptionally so-so.

GREENS ARE PIVOTAL

With 3.5% of the vote, this might be time for a green deputy to form a coalition with just off centre renovate democracy 6.24% and centre-ish Social democracy 38.07% and the new comers (not led by a cleric) XXI century 10.99%

But certainly no new government can afford to ignore the overwhelming move to the little bit just left of centre in the bustling urban capital where all the buses go and banks are village Andorra la Vell.

For fully counted results, IT users in the microstate have used pie-charts in traditional colours -

http://www.eleccions.ad/2005/Resultats/Grafics_nacionals.html

the poll has finished.

by nail biting

Sun Apr 24, 2005 21:20

more andorrans with voting rights voted than ever before. Quite amazing. But due to the population soft mathematics work of May, Oster and Yorke we can now fully understand that more andorrans didn't vote than ever before, because there are indeed more andorrans than ever.
We can't not say yet if the population of andorra has reached critical point and the tiny pyrennean banking, papyrus storage, and cheap tobacco state is about to go extinct.-
But we can say that at present 23% of the votes are counted and the liberals have so far got 40.15% with the other parties trailing with-
Social democrats 27.47%
XXI party 19.82%
the revindicate and reform democrats with 7.37%
and the greens whom no-one pacted with at 5.19%

So there you go looks like the Liberal party have it, had it and will go on having it. I'll wait till all the counting is finished, for three of the parishes have not even opened the ballot boxes yet.
These are andorra la vell (the capital hamlet of the mountainous uttrly un-troubled state), la massana (just a bit outside the capital and more rural and less urban area of the sleepy piste filled country), Sant Julia de Lòria the parish which borders Catalonia and at only 900metres is considerably lower than the rest of the "rugged would be alpine if it were not pyrennean land where everyone has country knit socks and there is no bloody mountaint to big to climb".

These crucial regions might upset the last minute celebrations in the liberal party HQ tonight, as no doubt the urban working class first time voters will turn to the left, and commentators can not underestimate the political inroads made by the seperatists in the Julia de Lòria valley in the last year, though the "maoist-maulet-nenas" declined to participate in the election at the last moment, the weather being sort of average voter apathy is expected to be a factor.

http://www.eleccions.ad/2005/Resultats/Grafics_nacionals.html

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How the Andorrans voted and "not voted"

Comments (4 of 4)