The Andalusian PSOE justifies Maracena's motion of censure in doing justice after “a shameful lying manipulation”

The general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas Cejas, congratulated his group in Maracena this Tuesday for the agreement reached with IU and Conecta, a local formation, which, if nothing strange happens in the next two weeks, by which the Socialists will recover the mayor's office of the Granada town. On Tuesday morning, the new coalition Maracenera has presented a motion of censure to dismiss the current popular mayor, Julio Pérez, and for the socialist Carlos Porcel to assume local leadership. The parties in the motion have 11 councilors, an absolute majority in a council of 21. For Espadas, this agreement “will allow this municipality to once again be governed by the political force that won the elections and that was the object of shameful lying manipulation by some very serious events”, as published on the X network (formerly Twitter).

Espadas refers to what happened in Maracena (22,200 inhabitants) three days before the elections on Sunday, May 28 of last year. The Thursday before that day, a judge ordered an investigation into the mayor and socialist candidate, Berta Linares, her spokesperson, Antonio García Leyva, and the previous mayor of the city and until this January number three of the Andalusian PSOE, Noel López, in the framework of the judicial investigation into the kidnapping of a socialist councilor by the then couple from Linares.

That judicial order blew up the local political scene and the PSOE, which had an absolute majority and expected to have it again, did not exceed seven councilors. Even so, he got more councilors than anyone else, although they were insufficient to govern. Noel López, 15 years mayor of Maracena (2007-2022) and now Andalusian parliamentarian, has written also in X that “justice is served to a people who they tried to confuse based on a lie.” Several months and court orders later, the three socialist politicians were left out of the investigation, without any judicial reproach. Berta Linares, currently away from active politics and who did not take up her position as councilor, has written in response to Espadas that “justice has finally been done with our group.”

Although in networks everything has been mentions of those turbulent days, the document of the motion of censure presented this Tuesday does not make any reference to those days and that pre-electoral mess, nor to the subsequent pacts that gave the baton of command to the PP. On the other hand, the text does give a detailed account and nothing positive according to the signatories of the actions of the PP mayor (who has six councillors) and his government teammates from Vox (two councillors) and Quiero Maracena (one councillor). . The future government coalition, for example, considers the popular Julio Pérez “an incapable and inefficient mayor” who has created “problem upon problem.” Under the heading “impoverishment of democratic quality” facts such as the homophobic statements of the Vox spokesperson that provoked a manifesto against 14 associations and groups, the “marketing of council departments” and the general lack of transparency of councilors in local power . They also accuse Pérez of contempt for the public for ordering the “paralysis of a hundred permanent jobs” and for having “received more complaints in this last year for unfair dismissals than in all previous legislatures.” And thus, also alleging the “nonexistence of a project for Maracena,” the signatories justify the motion of censure over several pages.

This newspaper has tried without success to speak with the current popular mayor. The plenary session in which the motion of censure will be voted on is held 10 business days after the presentation of the document, which brings Tuesday the 16th of this month as the day of celebration of that plenary session.

All parties in the new coalition agree that the first step for this motion of censure comes from Amabel Adarve, the only councilor of Maracena Conecta and until now a member of the current government team as councilor for Sports, Events and Youth. Adarve justifies his radical change of course—from supporting PP and Vox to supporting PSOE and IU—in the impossibility of working with the current leaders, “because this is now nonsense, without a present or future project and without a team.” Adarve, who explains that his party is a split from the PP, which he finally supported because he thought it was good for the city, explains that his agreement with the new team is to “maintain exactly the same position as now but with a project that we have defined.” ”. The councilor says that since a few months ago she abstained from a vote in which she should have voted in favor of the team, the relationship went wrong and, basically, everyone ignored her, “even telling the municipal officials not to collaborate with me.” ”. Adarve concluded the conversation by remembering that, in the face of the pressures that she may suffer, she is “strong, because I don't sell myself out. “I have not come here to eat politics, but to implement a project.”

On the part of IU de Maracena, its leader, Antonio Castillo, explained to this newspaper that the government team chaired by the PP was not working and that, specifically, with regard to opposition “it was an impossible task given the lack of transparency from the mayor and his team, a group of people who, furthermore, have never known or been able to work as such, as a team, given their differences.” Castillo has insisted on the need for an agreement “to solve problems.”

_