2023 Spanish vote-buying scandal

Throughout the month of May 2023, during the campaign for the local elections in Spain, multiple cases of vote buying were uncovered in several municipalities in Spain. These cases involved a broad spectrum of political parties, among which the two major political parties the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the People's Party (PP) stood out.

The scandal broke out when an increase of the postal voting for the Melilla Assembly election was detected and many mail carriers were assaulted while carrying the postal voting. Following these events, some parties, such as Coalition for Melilla (CpM), The Greens–Green Group (LV–GV) and Vox asked the Central Electoral Commission (JEC) to suspend the election and to cancel postal votes. On 23 May, ten individuals were arrested for their involvement in an attempted large-scale vote-buying fraud. Among those arrested were the son-in-law of Mustafa Aberchán, the leader of CpM; and Mohamed Ahmed Al-lal, who holds the third position on CpM's list and serves as a regional minister in the government of Melilla. The latter was dismissed by the Mayor-President of Melilla Eduardo de Castro the following day. Moreover, two individuals linked to the PP were also among the arrested.

In the following days, a number of cases in other municipalities of the country broke out involving the whole political spectrum. This led to the PP member Esteban González Pons accusing PSOE of a "widespread vote-buying scheme", although most of the towns implicated in the scandal involved either the PP or its candidates.