YOUR VIEWS

I have been living in Spain for many years and have been working legally with contracts and paying my taxes all this time. I have to admit that I don't understand or have any interest in politics whatsoever, but as the economy is in such a bad way I decided that it was important to vote in the National elections.

Off I went with my NIE and passport yesterday. (Passport is obviously necessary as of course we no longer have a card with our name, signature and finger print for identification as in the good old days…….now it is just a small piece of green paper which really isn't of any use whatsoever as we are supposed to carry our passports around as identification anyway!)
Anyway, after speaking to all the different tables (as nobody could find my name on any lists), I was finally informed that I did not have the right to vote! In local elections I can, but not in the national ones! The reason for this apparently being that I am only a Resident in Spain, I do not have Spanish nationality.

I have to say that I am pretty disgusted to learn that being ONLY a Resident means I have the right to PAY, but I have no right to decide what the Government later does with the money that I have paid into the system, without being a Spanish National.

Jo Mowbray