The PP pays tribute to Rita Barberá, “the best mayoress in the world”

Six years after her death, the PP is reconciled with the memory of Rita Barberá, who was reviled by the popular in the time of Mariano Rajoy for the alleged ‘smurfing’ in the 2015 electoral campaign. «Here there is a woman who has been the best mayor in the world and who was destroyed by a party that does not deserve to govern”, said the former vice president of Congress and former councilor of Malaga, Celia Villalobos, during a round table that highlighted the role of PP women in local politics.

Barberá, Villalobos, Luisa Fernanda Rudí, Teófila Martínez or Soledad Becerril. They were all mayors and their victories in the 1995 municipal elections, together with the results in the regional elections, opened the door to Moncloa for José María Aznar a year later. A move that Alberto Núñez Feijóo hopes to repeat this year. “You, along with Rita, proved to be the best, you broke ceilings,” said the campaign spokesman, Borja Sémper.

Shortly before, a short video had been projected with images of Barberá in her time as mayoress of the city of Turia. The deputy general secretary of the PP, the Valencian Esteban González Pons, and the candidate for mayor, María José Catalá, stood up to applaud, raising the rest of the attendees. “Our long-awaited Rita”, recalled the Deputy Secretary General, Cuca Gamarra, during the opening of the conclave. “She Today she is going to be very present and she is going to follow this Intermunicipal with great attention,” she stressed.

In his speech, Martínez reported that “when Aznar proposed to us to jump from national to local politics, we were not afraid because we had a reference, which was Rita, who met all the conditions to be a worthy representative to carry out a city model that move forward and with respect for minorities. I learned above all from Rita that politics is true.