This parachutist fell on Ourense on Tuesday with the mission of writing about a political phenomenon called Democracia Ourensana, the x factor of the Galician elections next Sunday.
Serious mistake, that day the main festival of Entroido, the Galician carnival, was celebrated. Anyone who has been in Ourense on this day of the year will know that it is not the right time to talk about anything remotely serious, surrounded by fun, happy people, married couples dressed as cows, octogenarians with painted cheeks and curvy girls, very, very already tired
Even less so if the leader of the party about which he has the task of investigating, the mayor of Ourense, Gonzálo Pérez Jácome, - there he is in the photo - walks through the Plaza Mayor, dressed as a Power Ranger surrounded by four young ladies, also disguised as He who follows him everywhere.
The Power Rangers were Japanese fictional creatures with hidden and extraordinary powers who fought the evil Rita who wanted to conquer the earth. And they almost always won. In Ourense, Jácome is now the head of the Power Rangers.
Published and unpublished polls strongly suggest the possibility that his party, Democracia Ourensana, will obtain representation in the Galician Parliament next Sunday. Almost everyone predicts that in these elections the majority will be decided by one or two deputies at most. One of them could be from Jácome's party.
No one dares to say who this politician would support, whose program is summarized in denouncing the grievance that, in his opinion, the people of Orense suffer with respect to the rest of the Galician provinces and with respect to the rest of Spain. Our people first, that's the motto.
Jácome is the most Trumpist of the active Galician politicians. He celebrated the victory of the American president – a country in which he lived for two years – as his own. He doesn't marry anyone unless it works for him. When asking a person who has known him for years with whom he believes he could agree if his role is decisive in forming the next Government of the Xunta, he answers jokingly: “With Junts i Bildu, if necessary.”
However, and in case it helps to define his preferences, he always speaks in Spanish. On one occasion he spoke in Galician in public and justified himself by saying that he had drunk too much.
He and his most loyal party partner, Armando Ojea, first deputy mayor in Ourense, who heads the list for the regional elections, grew politically against the grain. “They were the political periphery. They met in a bar and dedicated themselves to denouncing the local chiefs. "They grew up on the deterioration of the political system of Ourense where there has been everything, especially in the environment of the Baltar family who for years had everything under control." “The curious thing – adds this source – is that now, they have become friends with Baltar Jr.”
(Note: José Manuel Baltar, senator for the PP, son of the historic president of the Ourense Provincial Council and temporary heir to this position, became famous a few months ago after being arrested for driving at 215 kilometers per hour. He is accused of it .)
The springboard to the success of Democracia Ourensana was a television channel, Auria TV, from which Jácome and Ojea made a name for themselves in the city. “We took anyone who reported cases of corruption to the plate,” recalls Ojea.
In 2019, Gonzalo Pérez Jácome, despite representing the third political force and with only seven councilors, won the mayor's office for the first time with the support of the Popular Party.
Four years later in 2023, and already with 33% of the votes and 10 councilors, he was elected again, also with the support of the PP and despite the fact that the popular and socialists had agreed in advance that they would prevent him from reaching the mayor's office due to his unusual eccentricities, which are witnessed in numerous videos posted on the Internet.
However, when push came to shove they did not agree and the PP handed over the baton of command of the city to Jácome. The PP mayoral candidate, former mayor Manuel Cabezas, would end up renouncing his position as councilor due to this pact endorsed by the management chaired by Alfonso Rueda.
Ourensana Democracy does not hold rallies. Never. Not to mention he doesn't even use the province's main newspaper, La Región, with which he is in a deadly confrontation. Before the elections, the newspaper published some recordings in which Jácome supposedly boasted about his abilities to launder black money. They did not prevent his good electoral result.
He moves like a fish in water in the nets. Last Monday he released a video on his Tik-tok account in which he was seen sitting on a terrace of a bar in Ourense announcing that on Tuesday orellas, the traditional Entroido sweets, would be distributed for free in various parts of the city. They distributed 14,000 in a few hours.
Those who know them assure that both Jácome and Ojea are two more intelligent guys than the average politician in the province. “They have filled the city streets with escalators and elevators so that the elderly can climb the ramps in the municipality. And it gives young people a party. “It hires the best orchestras in Galicia every year.”
However, there are those who, behind Jácome's success, see the internal struggles of the Galician PP in the background. Once again the Baltars determined to prevent at all costs any victory of those close to Orense and current president of the party Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Given the choice, they prefer Jácome in the mayor's office and, perhaps, Ojea in the Galician Parliament. But there is no consistent evidence of that relationship.
The truth is that Democracia Ourensana has the possibility of obtaining representation in these elections. Ojea, the candidate, assures that, given the reception he receives in his campaign - he travels in a motorhome through the parishes of the province - he hopes to obtain more than one deputy. The polls only attribute him one seat. To do this he would have to reach at least 11,000 votes in his province where he is presenting a candidacy. In the 2016 elections he already obtained more than 7,000. In the municipal elections in May he reached 18,000.
The campaign committees of other Galician parties already assume that Ojea will be in the new political scenario that emerged from the polls. Another thing is what place it will occupy in the new work that premieres this Sunday.
