The PP and Vox will make official today the entry of the four far-right councilors into the government team of the mayor, María José Catalá. With which Santiago Abascal's party gains power in the third city of Spain. This was not the initial will of Catalá, which obtained 13 of the 33 councilors of the corporation last March 28. But the events, translated into loss of votes, and the need to guarantee stability to close the municipal budgets, have allowed Vox to achieve its great objective: to become part of the management of the jewel of the Valencian Crown.
With this agreement, Vox achieves the areas of Family and Children, Seniors and Youth, Markets and Health, traditional festivals without failures, and the management of the Devesa del Saler. In addition, spokesperson Juan Manuel Bádenas will manage Economy, Employment and Entrepreneurship and his councilors will also have another mayoral position. Some of these competitions had been advanced by COPE Valencia and have been confirmed by this newspaper. With this pact, Vox rounds out its participation in Valencian institutions after managing to become part of the regional executive chaired by Carlos Mazón.
When it seemed that the tension was going to blow up any bridge between the so-called "preferred partners", a four-way meeting between the mayor herself, the Councilor for Large Projects, José Marí Olano, on behalf of the PP; and the municipal spokesperson for Vox and the provincial president, Ignacio Gil Lázaro (a person of Santiago Abascal's greatest confidence), served to reduce the tension and prepare the way for those of Vox.
A day later, Vox supported without question and without introducing any changes the tax ordinances proposed by the PP and, hours later, the City Council reported that it had informed Valencia CF that it would not carry out any negotiations on the urban planning agreement until the Club effectively resumes the construction works on the New Stadium, paralyzed for almost fifteen years. The agreement with Peter Lim has been one of Vox's workhorses since the beginning of the legislature.
Thus, both Catalá and Badenas made clear yesterday their intention to deepen the negotiations to ensure the approval of the 2024 municipal budgets. However, they wanted to separate this negotiation from a Government pact. Despite this, municipal sources have confirmed to this newspaper that the pact is increasingly closer to the point that there is talk that it could be presented this week.
The former mayor of Valencia and spokesman for Compromís, Joan Ribó, stated yesterday that “32 years later in this city we are going to have another chicken pact but now with a chicken placed on the flag by Vox. It seems that the secret courtship that PP and Vox carried out will end at the altar, as we have already been warning and as they have already done wherever they have been able to govern."
Ribó lamented that "perhaps it is the most ultra agreement of all those that have been signed in other municipalities and autonomous governments throughout Spain. Will Mrs. Catalá grant them, as she has done so far in everything that the Vox group has requested, the "The most sensitive areas of municipal management? We hope that this is not the case but we suspect that it will be, seeing the trajectory of the PP municipal government in recent months with such sectarian decisions and in line with the extreme right."
For her part, Sandra Gómez, spokesperson for the PSPV, demanded that María José Catalá explain “what her pact with Vox, which she has worked so hard to hide, is going to cost Valencians.” “We want to know the details and the fine print of this new pact of shame that Catalá has signed in Valencia. She must clearly explain in exchange what the city council of Spain's third city has sold to the ultra group that denies gender violence and climate change.
“We already warned yesterday that the pact was made and that Mrs. Catalá intended to deceive the city of Valencia. Finally, she had to hit ‘cabotà’ and publicly admit that she had reached an agreement with Vox to bring them into the government,” she added.
