Andalusia votes this Sunday, May 17, looking at Juanma Moreno, María Jesús Montero, Vox, the provincial remnants, and the absolute majority. But the electoral day is also decided in much smaller places, almost invisible on the political map: towns with fewer than 200 inhabitants where each vote has a name, surnames, and, often, a family history.
In these municipalities, politics operates on a different scale. There are no large rallies, no massive campaigns, no proprietary polls. There are neighbors who have known each other forever, mayors who have been in office for decades, minimal voter rolls, and a clear difference between voting in regional, general, or municipal elections. Because in small towns, as several mayors summarize, the party is one thing and the person is something else entirely.
EFE's analysis of ten of the smallest municipalities in Andalusia - including Benitagla, Castro de Filabres, Alsodux, Alcudia de Monteagud, Beires, Cóbdar, Cumbres de Enmedio, Juviles, Lobras, and Salares - shows a striking pattern: bipartisanship continues to dominate in a large part of these localities, with alternating victories for PP and PSOE, although municipal elections usually follow much more personal logics.
The towns where an election can be decided by a few ballots
In large municipalities, parties look at percentages, blocs, and neighborhoods. In the smallest towns, a difference of five, ten, or fifteen votes can completely change the color of the result. It is democracy in miniature: less noise, less structure, and much more weight for each ballot.
Among the cases analyzed are municipalities such as Cumbres de Enmedio, in Huelva, with just over fifty inhabitants; Benitagla, in Almería; Castro de Filabres, also in Almería; Juviles and Lobras, in Granada; or Salares, in Málaga. These are localities where the voter roll is barely around a hundred electors and where participation can depend on whether the registered residents are actually in the town that day.
This is one of the most curious factors of small rural voting: those who live in the municipality are not always the ones who vote there. There are residents who habitually live in the capital, others who spend weekends there but are not registered, and others who return only for specific dates. The voter roll, in these towns, does not always match the real picture of the town square.
Regional and Municipal Elections: Not the Same Voting
The big difference is between regional and municipal elections. In regional elections, the political brand weighs more: PP, PSOE, Vox, Por Andalucía, Adelante Andalucía, or the rest of the candidacies. In municipal elections, on the other hand, daily coexistence weighs more.
The mayor of Castro de Filabres, Noemí Cruz, from the PSOE, explains it with a very clear phrase: in municipal elections "you don't vote so much for political ideals," but for people, because in such a small town everyone knows each other. That familiarity produces electoral behaviors unusual in large cities: neighbors who vote one way in regional elections, another in general elections, and yet another in municipal elections.
Therein lies one of the sociological keys to rural Andalusia. Ideology exists, of course. But in municipal elections, who fixes your street, who attends to you when there's a problem, who opens the town hall, who knows your family, and who has been present for years comes into play.
The PP gained ground in 2022 in historically socialist towns
The analysis of the last regional elections shows another interesting fact: some municipalities where the PSOE had traditionally won in Andalusian elections gave victory to the PP in 2022, the year of Juanma Moreno's absolute majority.
That happened, for example, in Cumbres de Enmedio, a municipality in Huelva with a very long tradition of socialist municipal government. It was also observed in Salares, in Malaga, where the town hall has been in socialist hands in recent years, but the regional scenario changed with the political cycle opened by the PP in the Junta since 2019.
That shift helps to understand Moreno's weight on the Andalusian map: his absolute majority was not built solely in large cities, but also in small towns where the regional vote changed direction, even though municipal politics continued to follow a different logic.
Juviles: a town with more than 20 years without municipal opposition
One of the most striking cases is Juviles, in Granada. Its mayor, Lourdes Molina, from the PP, has been leading the municipality for more than two decades. For almost all of that time, she has governed without opposition in the town hall, except in her first term, when there was a socialist councilor.
The curious thing is that, despite the long municipal dominance of the PP in Juviles, the PSOE had traditionally won there in regional elections, except in the last elections. Another proof that the local vote and the regional vote can go down different paths.
Almería concentrates several of the smallest towns
A large part of the smallest municipalities in Andalusia are located in the province of Almería. The analysis includes Benitagla, Castro de Filabres, Alsodux, Alcudia de Monteagud, Beires, and Cóbdar, all with very small populations.
In some of these towns, the PP has been the most voted party continuously in the analyzed regional elections, as is the case in Alcudia de Monteagud, Beires, or Benitagla. In other cases, such as Castro de Filabres or Alsodux, the PSOE maintains a strong position, also linked to socialist mayorships.
They are small towns, but politically interesting because they allow us to see how the rural vote behaves in its purest form: small population, a lot of familiarity, strong influence of the mayor, and a direct relationship between local management and electoral behavior.
When the whole town votes except for the person still on the census
The most picturesque case comes from Cumbres de Enmedio. On one occasion, according to its mayor, practically 100% of the census voted except for one person who could not do so because they had recently passed away, although they were still listed.
They tried to ask if they could close the polling station and start the count, but it was not possible: as long as the voter was still registered on the census, the polling station had to remain open until the legal closing time.
The scene is almost a postcard of small-scale Spanish elections: a polling station waiting for a voter that everyone knew would not arrive. And yet, the rule is the rule.
Why these towns matter in regional elections
In absolute terms, these municipalities do not decide a regional election by volume. But they do help to understand something important: how rural Andalusia behaves, how the vote changes between elections, and to what extent local politics can coexist with very different regional trends.
Furthermore, on an election night where the last provincial seats can depend on narrow margins, no vote is decorative. In small or medium-sized provinces, the sum of many tiny towns can end up weighing in the final distribution.
Andalusian politics is decided in Seville, Málaga, Cádiz, or Granada capital, yes. But also in Castro de Filabres, Juviles, Cumbres de Enmedio, or Salares. In places where the polling station is almost an extension of the town and where, before voting, you probably already know who you are going to run into.
The Andalusia that votes in a whisper
The Andalusian elections will be counted tonight in large figures: participation, blocs, absolute majority, Vox, PSOE, PP, and last seats. But there is another Andalusia that votes in a lower voice. The one in the towns where no campaign is needed to know who is who. The one at the polling stations where everyone greets each other. The one of the mayors who govern more by presence than by poster.
That small vote does not usually make the news, but it explains a lot. Because in Andalusia, as in almost all of Spain, politics does not only happen in parliaments. It also happens in the towns where the ballot box fits in a room, the census looks like a list of neighbors, and each ballot weighs as much as an pending conversation.