Recupera Madrid announces its assault on the Cibeles palace. Luis Cueto and José Manuel Calvo, current councilors of the Mixed Group in the City Council and who were part of the Más Madrid list in the 2019 Manuela Carmena elections, presented this Monday night at the Torre España building in the capital ―converted into a four-star hotel by the Riu company― his new political project: Recupera Madrid. From the 26th floor and overlooking the new Plaza de España ―the last great work in the capital that Calvo himself began as mayor of Urban Planning during Carmena’s term― both councilors have presented their citizen candidacy “led by experts from all subjects” and not by politicians. The mayoral candidate will be Cueto himself.
Cueto, a 63-year-old from Madrid, was the representative of the City Council in Ifema, Club de Campo or Madrid Destino during the term of Carmena, of whom he is his nephew-in-law. “The Plaza de España hotel symbolizes our management a lot,” Cueto explained to the close to a hundred attendees who were in the hotel room. “All the pressures we suffer we endure. The proof is that the Riu hotel works. We love this space.” If this citizen platform is carried out, it would be the first time that such a formation entered the Cibeles palace. The law, yes, requires a minimum of 8,000 signatures with the condition of collecting them 30 days before the registration period of the parties for the 2023 elections. Cueto and Calvo believe that they have the possibility of collecting them. To do this, they have presented this Monday the rest of the citizens who will make up their list and even the council they will lead if they come to govern.
The Health Area, for example, would be led by Lydia Pradera Andrés, a doctor by profession; the high school teacher María Dolores Curto, would lead the Education portfolio; or the architect Raquel del Río, the Department of Heat, among other names and personalities.
The birth of Recupera Madrid
The four councilors who were part of the Mixed Group received from the outset the label of carmenists. Marta Higueras is a close friend of Manuela Carmena and was the deputy mayor of the capital during her term; Cueto is the nephew-in-law of the former mayor and was her general coordinator of the mayor’s office; Felipe Llamas, who resigned from his duties in December, was his chief of staff at the Palacio de Cibeles; and José Manuel Calvo, the head of Urbanism, one of the strongest portfolios of the City Council. “From the first day”, writes Carmena in the prologue of the book Progressive Government Manual which Calvo himself published a few months ago, “was an indispensable collaborator in launching a new way of understanding the city”.
After the loss of the mayoralty, Carmena confirmed her departure and Más Madrid was divided into two spokespersons. A fact that evidenced the two currents of the party. Marta Higueras remained as institutional spokesperson and Rita Maestre —who was the government spokesperson with Carmena— with the microphone before the media. Higueras and Maestre were the two visible pillars of the formation until May 2020. The party then began its first organizational process. Higueras and the three councilors who stepped aside in March gave up appearing at this internal refoundation. “I feel more comfortable with the view that there are other, more flexible forms, with other organizations than political parties,” Higueras argued in those days. Maestre, however, brought together the majority of councilors on her list. More Madrid left Carmena’s vision aside and became, yes, a political party like the rest.
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On March 31, 2021, Recupera Madrid was born, a platform created after the split of the Mixed Group. Only two keep the flame of appearing together in 2023 alive: Cueto and Calvo. Higueras tries to find a place in the left formations, although as the socialist candidate for mayor of Madrid, Reyes Maroto, has revealed, she does not have her on her list either.
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