The new mayoress of Pamplona, ??Cristina Ibarrola (UPN), has presented the government team with which she will manage the city in a minority and has made it clear that she will not govern driven by the need to build bridges with respect to the progressive majority in the consistory. The appointment of Carlos Salvador as Councilor for Education, Equality and Cultural Diversity has generated forceful criticism from opposition groups for his “ultra-conservative” profile and, at first, is seen as an obstacle to seducing the PSN, whose support will need to form majorities.
The regionalist mayoress was invested with the only support of the UPN councilors (9 of 27) and the two PP councilors. The PSN (5 councilors) chose to vote blank, after declining to support the candidate of EH Bildu (8 councillors), the second force in the city, and once the third way was ruled out: a progressive minority government led by Geroa Bai (2 councilors) and with the support of Contigo/Zurekin (1).
Ibarrola is far from the majority and only has the support of the two councilors of the PP, a party that maintains an open war with UPN. He needs the support of at least three other councilors to be able to govern with some solvency and, of course, to carry out important projects such as budgets. The progressive majority of the opposition could plant a vote of no confidence at any time, so it was possible to think of a more focused government that seeks to build bridges with opposition groups.
Salvador’s appointment, however, has caused outrage among other groups. The first opposition party, EH Bildu, has considered that with this designation “the ultra-right enters through the front door” in Pamplona.
“The ultra-right enters the City Hall through the front door at the hands of Carlos Salvador, an ultra-politician who questions the rights of women, the LGTBI collective and who has established himself as a prominent anti-abortion militant. Before Vox proposed that women who decide to abort have to see an image of the fetus, he had already proposed it in Congress,” they have indicated.
The PSN, for its part, has expressed its “disappointment and concern” because it may mean a setback in rights” and also considers that Ibarrola “breaks with the idea of ??an egalitarian, plural and open city”.
The Geroa Bai Basque coalition (PNV and Geroa Socialverdes) has described the appointment as “intolerable”, because it is a politician who “has historically stood out for his positions contrary to equality, women’s rights and sexual diversity”.
Finally, Contigo/Zurekin (Podemos, IU and Batzarre) has regretted that “an ultra-conservative profile” has been chosen and has indicated that it will mean “a strong setback” in terms of equality and in what refers to LGTBI rights.
Carlos Salvador was a UPN deputy in the Congress of Deputies between 2014 and 2019, until he gave way to Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, the wayward deputies who would end up going over to the PP and, in the case of the latter, running for the Mayor of Pamplona with the popular.
During his years in Madrid, Salvador was characterized by a very marked conservative profile that led him to be awarded by the Hazte Oír platform. Also due to a provocative mood in the stands and on social networks that led him to star in several controversies.
Salvador has harshly attacked the Skolae co-education program, promoted by the Government of Navarra and awarded by Unesco; he has compared abortion to Toro de la Vega; He already proposed in 2013 to force mothers who wish to abort to see an ultrasound of the fetus (he considered it “very progressive”; or he has ironized the children of Pablo Iglesias.
