Surveys show that city councils are the institution in which we feel best represented. Does the following petition represent you? “I would ask that the councilors be given an area to park on full days. I have come three quarters of an hour before and I have had to go around three times and I have also parked relatively far away”. Juan Chacón is one of the three councilors of the PSOE in La Línea de la Concepción, and has been dismissed as spokesman for the group due to his “unforgivable occurrence”.
The mayor does not have an angel Marcelo, like Jorge Fernández Díaz, to help him park, so his mayor offered him a solution to be at home: “He has a parking lot for €2.80 next to the town hall, 50 or 70 euros (actually it’s 75) that they are paid for per diems for the plenary sessions are for you to use for gasoline, parking, or buy a pastry if you’re hungry. Or come walking. You can go out like Miguelete, in the morning”. The networks have campaigned for the mayor. More than a million views on Tik Tok, half a million on Twitter… “Diets and jetas”, sums up a tweeter.
Juan Franco governs La Línea with one of the largest absolute majorities in Spain, 21 of the 25 mayors of the consistory, thanks to the 67% of the votes he achieved with La Línea 100×100. He has his own Funko Pop and is displayed on the networks next to the iron throne as king of the seven kingdoms. Yours is small. He has 20 km2, 63,000 inhabitants and 30,000 cars looking for parking.
There is no news of tactical urban planning in a city with 19 car parks (no cinema, a library…) and roundabouts famous for queues when there is control at the Gibraltar gate. The mayor stumbles upon his plan to turn La Línea into an autonomous city, like Ceuta or Melilla; and he is incapable of lowering the 40% unemployment rate… A freak –or not– skilled enough to spend the wild card of exemplarity and bring out the colors of his unfortunate opponent.
For a parking space or a gold pension, politicians insist on deepening the gap with their electorate. In Catalonia, the deputies have been unable for years to agree on a formula so that their salaries are paid in full, paid leave among Parliament staff has become fossilized and it has taken them 20 years to realize that decades-long mandates -such as Jordi’s Pujol– will not return and the salaries and pensions of former presidents of the Chamber and the Generalitat are accumulating. The public service forces a financial striptease exercise for the sake of transparency. Once that trance is over, politicians must be aware that they also enjoy perks. During the exercise of the position and after.
