The PP has made this Saturday a heartfelt tribute to the mayoress of Valencia for six legislatures, Rita Barberá. The popular ones have taken advantage of the celebration of the intermunicipal that is celebrated these days in the city of Valencia to pay tribute to the generation of 95, when five women of the party -Celia Villalobos (Málaga), Luisa Fernanda Rudi (Zaragoza), Teófila Martínez ( Cadiz), Soledad Becerril (Seville) and Barberá herself- won in the elections anticipating the change in the political cycle.
After the projection of the video, the auditorium and the entire leadership of the PP, starting with its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, stood up to applause.
A tribute to Barberá that comes after several attempts by the party to close the open wounds with the family of the deceased mayoress. The one who came to be described as mayoress of Spain - a term that was heard again this afternoon - ended up being removed by her people in 2016 when she lost the elections and had to go to testify before the Supreme Court in the case of the alleged money laundering that affected to the PP of the city of Valencia. She died 48 hours later at the hotel where she was staying in Madrid.
Since then, the party has tried to bring positions closer despite the fact that some of the cases that call into question its municipal management continue in the courts.
However, on this first day, the memory and praise of Barberá have been constant on the part of the leaders who have intervened. The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, was the first to remember Barberá and the great rally to close the 1996 campaign in the Mestalla field with José María Aznar. More forceful has been one of the members of that generation of 95. Celia Villalobos, who has participated in one of the tables, wanted to remember the mayoress of Valencia. "There is a woman missing here today who has been the best mayor in the world, Rita Barberá. Dear friend, destroyed by a party that does not deserve to govern." Along these lines, she has asked the leaders of the Valencian PP to win the next regional and municipal elections in May because "Rita deserves it."
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Almeida, also had words of recollection underlining the idea that Barberá was the "best mayoress in Spain".
Given these comments, the PP candidate for the Presidency of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, has been "excited". The leader of the Valencian PP has considered that this recognition was something "deserved and necessary". "This tribute has moved all of us", he concluded.
