Alvise Pérez, leader of Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF), the surprise party from the last European elections, where they obtained 800,000 votes and three seats, announced on Friday through social media that he was backtracking on his promise to raffle off his salary as a Euro MP. Hours later, he mocked the media that had covered his announcement and claimed it was a ploy to attract attention. Given his history of hoaxes, there was doubt as to when he was telling the truth.The idea of raffling off a public salary is not original. It was put into practice by the current Argentine president, Javier Milei, who raffled off his salary as a deputy for Buenos Aires (2.1 million pesos, about 2,000 euros) between 2021 and 2023. The latest draw was last December and 2.8 million people participated.
Although Alvise has copied Milei – even the design of his website, alvisecumpliendo, is inspired by the one created by the latter for his draw, mipalabra.javiermilei – there are notable differences. The Argentine president held the draws in the presence of a notary and broadcast them live. On the other hand, the Spanish Euro MP has announced that he will use a Smart Contract, a computer program that generates a random number and is housed in a blockchain, a public and unmodifiable electronic register. Experts consulted by El País consider this system reliable, as long as it is ensured that each number corresponds to a real person and that the same person cannot have access to multiple numbers.
The trust that Alvise demands from his followers in the transparency of this procedure, which not everyone can understand, contrasts with the distrust he harbors towards the Spanish electoral system, based on a manual and face-to-face count. The Euro MP denounced alleged fraud in the last European elections based on the possible manipulation of the “indra ipad lens algorithm.” In reality, this company was only transmitting provisional results, while the counting of the ballots was carried out by the members of the electoral tables chosen by lottery among citizens, with the presence of representatives from different political parties.
Marketing experts, however, believe that suspicions of fraud in Alvise’s draw are also unfounded, as the profitability of the operation lies elsewhere: obtaining a database of millions of personal data at a very low price, the 8,088.03 euros of his monthly net salary as a Euro MP. Those who want to participate in the raffle (more than 170,000 people as of Thursday, according to his website) must provide their name, ID number, phone number, email, place of residence, and their username on X, Tik Tok, and Instagram.
The inscription implies granting the leader of Se Acabó La Fiesta the right to process these personal data “for one or more specific purposes,” which are not detailed; and also the possibility of spreading this information. These data may be published on Alvise’s social networks and “made available to other third-party users,” he warns. The goal, according to the contest rules, is for the Euro MP to call the winner and publish the conversation between them, “to demonstrate the transparency and legitimacy of the draw.”
