The mayor of Ontinyent and former president of the Valencia Provincial Council, Jorge Rodríguez, yesterday brought together more than a hundred mayors and councilors from nearly 60 municipalities (Nules, Oliva, Calp, Carcaixent, Buñol, Canals…) in an attempt to make a show of force and to show that his political project, which aspires to go beyond the borders of the Vall d’Albaida, is serious. He did it in the Provincial Council of Valencia, an institution that is given as an example of what a municipalist formation can achieve.
The immediate objective of Rodríguez and those who accompany him on this journey is to consolidate (and if possible) expand his power of influence in the Provincial Council of Valencia – his deputy is the one who tipped the balance in the Government of the provincial institution – and enter the other two deputies through the union of various independent parties with a presence in the territory.
After leaving the PSPV due to his accusation in the Alquería case (from which he has already been definitively acquitted), Rodríguez founded La Vall Ens Uneix, a project that allowed him to grow outside Ontinyent and win a provincial deputy to the PP, although he would ultimately end up handing over the Presidency of the provincial institution to this formation. Yesterday, before the media, Rodríguez admitted that his intention to “unite forces” with other independent groups “is not intended to reach Les Corts Valencianes or Congress.”
To begin that much more ambitious adventure, he acknowledged, “there has to be water in the pool.” For this reason, he reiterated that the short-term objective is to increase the capacity to influence the councils and have representation in the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces. “The train leaves today as a choral project and without hierarchies or stretcher tables and we will see where it arrives,” he indicated.
And even if they managed to bring together all the independent votes spread across dozens of acronyms, translating it into an autonomous candidacy that could overcome the 5% barrier seems like a very complicated objective. The judicial parties seem a more feasible target. However, the mayor of Nules, David García, who is another of the agitators of the municipal expansion project, pointed out that the independents overall exceed 5% of the votes and insisted on the need to create synergies.
