Soon there will be a new city on the map of Spain. Its name has not yet been decided (four academics will do so), but its inhabitants voted on Sunday in a referendum for its creation.
The new city will be the result of the union of two towns in the province of Badajoz, Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena, in the region of Extremadura.
It will have 63,000 inhabitants and an area of 710 square kilometers, according to the newspaper El Pais. It will be the third city of Extremadura, behind the two province capitals (Badajoz and Caceres). Until now, the third place in the ranking was held by Merida.
The final result of the vote was known around 1 am on Monday. It was favorable, but unequal if the vote in the two municipalities is observed.
In Villanueva de la Serena (the smaller of the two towns) support for the union was overwhelming (90.5%), but in Don Benito it was only 66.2%.
66% in both towns required
The conditions for the popular consultation established that, for the merger of both towns to go ahead, it was necessary that the affirmative votes reach 66% in each of the two municipalities.
Therefore, in Don Benito the goal was achieved but only with two tenths of a margin. Scarce, but enough to consummate the first merger of two major municipalities, symbolic at a time when rupture and separation seem to be the norm.
Voter turnout was 58.94% in Villanueva and 50.42% in Don Benito. There was no established minimum for the referedum to be valid.
