Talk about Last Minute

As I mentioned in the last post I was called to a meeting at La Vida Restaurant last night. When I got there I discovered that all the Partido Andalucista members had been summoned and the purpose was for Candido to put to us the latest developements regarding the new administration.

Candido opened the meeting and explained that the past 2 weeks had been the craziest he had been involved in in politics. Up until Wednesday, he explained, that PP and PSOE had a written agreement to take control of the council for the next 4 years with the PP mayoral candidate being Mayor for all 4 years with no cost to PP! Candido did say that he had one option left as late as Wednesday and that was to go directly to the PP regional political masters, which is what he did. When he entered the negotiations he knew that the only way to make progress was to accept the PP candidate as mayor for the full term. He was willing to do this and thereby forfeit his potential to be mayor if three conditions were met. These were that a) no Town Hall workers would be sacked, b) the funding for the solicitors, who are defending all property owners, be continued and lastly that the PA councillors had meaningful roles. The first two of these matters were things, we were concerned, that PSOE would do if they had control. He revealed that the PP politicians in Almeria agreed to this. As a result of that and some other things which he later explained to us we have shaken hands on an agreement to form an alliance with PP.

There are certain benefits which could come out of such an affiliation, none least of course, the benefit of regional government looking more kindly on our decisions. I immediately asked if this would have any impact on the PGOU and Candido said that that nothing could really hamper the PGOU as any amendment to it requires a Pleno with a majority of 6.

Candido revealed also that the 4 representatives of PA, would each be given a role with autonomy e.g. each would have the ability to, in their field, exercise the rights as if he were Mayor e.g. to agree or not to agree to undertake things without having to refer to the Mayor. He explained that PA would have control of the following remits, Public Services and Works, Culture, Sports and the 3rd Age. These would have to be finalised at the first Pleno after the inauguration Pleno probably next Monday.

He said he felt this was a strange situation because he was asking the PA councillors to vote for the PP candidate and yet he has not been able to talk directly to him since the election. All the negotiations have been done through Almeria. He said that this deal helped PP show that they had another council under their control, by having the Mayor but of course we still have the 4 votes he would need to progress anything. He then put this agreement to the members and asked if anyone thought we should not go through with this deal and after a debate the consensus was that this was the best we could do and we should work with it.

I suspect that this mornings inauguration meeting in the Town Hall could be quite explosive as a number of people do not know what the outcome is likely to be. The Police will be in attendance and I hope we do not see the kind of tricks employed on Election day!

I will update the blog later today with the outcome of this morning meeting which is really just to inaugurate the administration and elect a Mayor. At the conclusion of the meeting I thanked Candido for being big enough to turn down the Mayorship in the wider interests of the town.