The 92nd anniversary of the proclamation of the Second Republic has been the day chosen for the plenary session of the Alcoi City Council to annul another plenary agreement approved on April 10, 1959 by which the city's gold medal was offered to the dictator Francisco Franco . There is no record that he accepted the distinction or the existence of such a medal, but all the political groups, except for the only Vox councilor, have voted today in favor of withdrawing that agreement.
The favorable vote has been joined by all the left-wing groups and also Ciudadanos and the Popular Party, whose spokesman, Juan Enrique Ruiz, has defended that "the maintenance of the dictator Francisco Franco in the honor roll of this City Council is absolutely incompatible with the values democratic".
According to the file provided to this single item on the agenda of the municipal plenary session, the withdrawal of honors from Franco is intended to comply with the 2022 Historical Memory Law in its articles 40 and 42.
The groups PSOE, PP, Compromís, Ciudadanos, Podem, Guanyar and a non-attached councilor have voted in the affirmative while the only vote against has been that of Vox. His representative, David Andrés Abad, has argued that his party does not want to "collaborate in this opportunistic coven", after describing the proposal as the result of "revanchist and hateful policies".
The minutes of the 1959 plenary session justified the awarding of the medal to Franco as "a manifestation of unwavering and enthusiastic adherence to him and to the Regime he represents, as the savior of the Homeland and restorer of the life of the Spanish Municipalities".
The file on which today's vote was based clarifies that "the medal cannot be withdrawn because the distinction was for life and the dictator died on November 20, 1975", so what has been approved is to leave without effect the agreements of that plenary session.
The Councilor for Participatory Democracy and Transparency, the socialist Teresa Sanjuán, stressed that the plenary session was held because it is "a matter of dignity for so many people who suffered repression."
Compromís, through its councilor Màrius Ivorra, has remarked that "54 years later, an act of justice is carried out" and "a distinction that Alcoi should never have granted" will be annulled. The spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Rosa García, has stressed that her favorable vote has been given because "when a situation is so clear, it does not deserve debate."
In his speech, the Podem spokesman, Cristian Santiago, recalled that "Alcoi once again complies with the principles of historical memory" and pointed out that "today, finally, it ends with a democratic anomaly".
