Why are the Fallas left out of the delegation of Festivals and Traditions in the new government of Valencia? It was the first question that the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, answered in the round of questions at yesterday’s press conference. And she, without hesitation, explained that now the two delegations are separated, “leaving on one side Fiestas and Traditions and on the other side, Fallas and the autonomous body Junta Central Fallera.”
In practice, councilor Mónica Gil, from Vox, assumes the festive management of the city, while councilor Santiago Ballester, from the Popular Party, stays with that of Las Fallas and, therefore, will continue to be the president of the Central Board Fallera, the organ that governs the festival and to which the falleros and falleras are protected.
That the mayor ties up the management of the Fallas festival is understood, without a doubt, due to the importance it has for the city. Las Fallas have always been a space where the right has felt comfortable, even more so when it took many years for the left to approach the party naturally. The arrival of Ribó to the mayor’s office and, above all, the parades in the Ofrenda of the then vice president of the Consell Mónica Oltra showed the left uncomplexed in a party that is historically of popular construction.
What’s more, faced with the eternal question, already hackneyed, of whether the parties are right-wing or left-wing, a municipal survey launched by Compromís – and highly criticized by the opposition at the time – revealed a few years ago that the right-wing bloc added the affinity of 33.1% of those surveyed, and that of the left, 40.5%. Therefore, neither of one nor of the other.
But we must not forget that the Fallas commissions that make the party possible add up to a total of 78,456 adults, all potential voters. They represent 13.5% of the electoral roll and that is why the party is a place where politics seeks visibility. In the previous legislature, PSPV and Compromís maintained a lot of friction to manage the party, which finally fell again to Compromís and its councilors Pere Fuset first, and Carlos Galiana later.
After failing to achieve this, the PSPV put all its efforts in this area and opted for a pro fallera, Nuria Llopis, Fallera Mayor Infantil de València, to carry out the party policies with all the ambition of making her the new president of the Fallera Central Board after May 28. Llopis’s presentation at the Flumen theater, with the participation even of the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, another ‘lifelong’ fallera, performing a fallero apropòsit speaks of how relevant the festival is for local management.
It is also worth taking into account its weight in the local economy, because although global results of the first economic impact study of the Fallas festival are not yet available, a first preview of the results has revealed that, for example, each Fallera family He spends about 1,800 euros annually on the party. Multiplied by the Fallas census, it gives a slight idea of ??how much the most relevant festival in Valencia moves.
Furthermore, the municipal budget is not immune to the impact of the festival on the future of the city and last year the council injected a total of 906,217.32 euros, to which we must add 3,541,767.92 euros in subsidies and 3,029,469.05 euros in complementary expenses such as firefighters, cleaning or subsidies to traditional sectors. In addition, the tourist area of ??the City Council also allocated an expense of 38,993.43 euros to this year’s Fallas and the Central Fallera Board, another 3,583,415.47 euros.
This legislature the PP will lead the management of the party, but it will also have to manage alongside Vox in matters that, traditionally, have gone under the same umbrella. The Department of Festivals with Rita Barberá, or the Department of Festival Culture in times of Compromís, were responsible for both the Fallas and the Seaman’s Holy Week, the organization of the Expojove Christmas fair or the Three Kings Parade.
Now, following the separation announced by Catalá, only the party remains in popular hands and the rest of the activities, also of notable visibility, pass into the hands of Vox, whose spokesperson Juanma Badenas already acknowledged yesterday that they took on delegations that “try to be in contact with the citizens of Valencia.” We will have to see the next Fallas events, which will soon take off, who appears in the photo and how.
