Last night’s council meeting in Bigastro was adjourned by the mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina following requests by the opposition councillor, Aurelio Murcia, to halt the process of appointing new police personnel.
Murcia claimed that the process was flawed by irregularities for example, he said that one member of the tribunal did meet the academic requirements and that the timeframe did not meet the specifications.
The mayor seemed to misunderstand fully what was being insinuated and insisted that Murcia should provide proof of the allegations he was making. At this point, Murcia brandished a CD in the air which he said contained evidence to support his argument. The mayor took exception to this and the atmosphere became tense. At this point, Murcia offered to fetch a laptop so that everyone could check the contents of the CD.
The mayor, clearly feeling threated yet again by the opposition leader, suspended the meeting. Thankfully they were at the last item on the agenda.
Bearing in mind that local elections will take place in May, I don’t think we can expect to see any let up in the war between the two opposing parties. The previous mayor was perhaps more of a match to Murcia because he had the benefit of years of experience in dealing with his opponents. The present mayor seems to find the persistent challenges from Murcia difficult to deal with and has lost control of the situation on a number of occasions.
Supporters of the mayor say that Murcia is a bully who argues for the sake of it. The opposition would counter this by pointing out that this is their proper role in government. Local and regional governments of both persuasions throughout Spain have been proved to be guilty of all forms of corruption in the past. Surely, the job of the opposition is to provide some sort of control to prevent further instances of this occurring.
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