The oldest councilor of the municipal corporation of Orihuela (77,900 inhabitants, Alicante), the socialist Guillermo Cánovas, has delivered this Monday the staff of the City Council to the new mayor of the city, his party partner Carolina Gracia. After a plenary session that lasted just over an hour, the motion of censure presented against the mayor until now, the popular Emilio Bascuñana, has prospered and PSOE and Ciudadanos (Cs) will form a government team with the punctual support of Cambiemos, which add 14 mayors compared to the 11 who accumulate PP and Vox. During her speech, Gracia defended the “responsibility of taking action in the face of the blockade situation” in which, in her opinion, Bascuñana had plunged the city. It is time, says the second mayor in the history of Orihuela, “to fix the mess”.
From the outset, the interventions of the extraordinary plenary session held this morning in the municipal multipurpose building, provisional accommodation for the corporation while the works of the City Council continue, showed that the agreement signed before a notary public by the six socialist councilors, the five from Ciudadanos and the three of Cambiemos was completely armored. Gracia, as the main supporter and candidate for mayor, has highlighted the “inability” of Bascuñana and his “lack of resolution and leadership capacity” to “reach agreements” that would alleviate “management failures” and the lack of unity in the Orihuela government, until this Monday formed by PP and Cs. The new mayor claims “the option of not being complicit in the irresponsibility” of the popular municipal team and ensures that the motion responds to the desire to “promote the best option” for Orihuela.
In front of her, on the opposite bench, Bascuñana has begun resigning herself. “I am leaving the Mayor’s Office with the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty, with a clear conscience, clean hands and against my will”, she stated. And then she went on the attack. The already former mayor, who recognizes that working alongside him “is not easy”, describes the new municipal government as a “union of losers” and considers that they are not “the most prepared” to take the reins of the consistory. Bascuñana insists that the pact that has evicted him from the mayor’s office “is full of hidden interests” and is based on the fact that Gracia “will allow [a los ediles de Cs] cross red lines” that he has not “allowed” them. “I have not given in to blackmail and irregularities”, he has sentenced.
The established regulation has allowed the intervention of the spokespersons of all the groups with municipal representation. And all eyes have focused, mainly, on José Aix, representative of the orange formation, who underlines the “responsibility, urgency and necessity” of abandoning his coalition with the popular ones to carry out the new government together with the PSOE. After detailing the main objectives set for the remaining year of the legislature, which, as in the socialist group, pass above all through approving a new municipal budget, Aix has confessed that “the coalition government” with the PP “was never a government nor was it coalition” and that his colleagues vote for Gracia “so that he can get Orihuela out of paralysis”. “We are doing the good and the right thing,” he has maintained. Finally, he has assured the new mayor that he has her “trust” and that he should take advantage of it. “Do not fail us”, he has asked.
For its part, from the Cambiemos group, the spokeswoman, María García Sandoval, has stated that Bascuñana “has not been up to the task” and has recalled that he is still “investigated for embezzlement” and “without giving explanations.” The representative of the local Podemos brand believes that popular management has left the capital of the Alicante region of Vega Baja “in almost absolute stagnation” and that its support for the motion, based on the need for “renewal and unlocking” is “the most useful decision for Orihuela”, but not for his party.
The socialist María García has accused Bascuñana of a lack of “self-criticism, empathy and respect” for the rest of the corporation’s parties. She has also replied to the mayor reminding him that neither in the Madrid City Council nor in the Alicante Provincial Council, both governed by the PP, the popular party was the most voted party. “Do Almeida and Mazón also lead a union of losers?”, She inquired. The person in charge of the intervention of the PP has been Rafael Almagro, who in a harsh intervention, the only one that has raised protests in the corporation, has accused the new local government of “hypocrisy and cynicism” and has been proud that Orihuela “is one of the municipalities with the lowest taxes in Spain”. “We will return in 2023 ″, he predicts, “to remove Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa, Ximo Puig from the Consell [el gobierno autonómico] and you from the town hall”. The turn of interventions has been opened by Vox, a party that in this motion has only been able to attend the rally exchange on one side and the other of the network, whose spokesperson, Asunción Aniorte, has branded the Cs mayors as “sold to sanchismo and to social communism.
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The final vote, nominal and raised voice, has given the control rod to Gracia. In alphabetical order, except in the case of Bascuñana, who as mayor was the last to express his opinion, the councilors have ratified what was expected of them. PP and Vox against; PSOE, Cambiemos and Ciudadanos in favor. The last of the mayors of the orange formation to issue his yes has been Antonio Sánchez Moya. With his support, in the absence of three more votes, the motion was approved.
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