Calvia council keeps its majority vote

THE vote of Calvia councillor Josep Thomás, who resigned from the Majorcan Unionist Party (UM) on Wednesday, gave the ruling Partido Popular the simple majority it needed to push through the reception of the Nova Santa Ponsa and Golf de Santa Ponsa estates. The nine socialist councillors and the remaining UM councillor, Isidre Cañellas, voted against the agreement, under which the council is bound to take over responsibility for the estates. The council meeting was tense at times but never violent.
The hall was packed for the meeting.
On one side were residents of the two estates, who supported Thomás, as thanks to the agreement they will now have the municipal services they were lacking up to now. On the other side there was a group of people who were opposed to Thomás's resignation and questioned the honesty of his behaviour.
There was a strong police contingent at the town hall, but they did not have to go into action.
Council sources say that PP Mayor Carlos Delgado has no plans for remodelling his governing team as a result of the episode, and if the persons involved or their parties do not take any action, Thomás and Cañellas will remain in their posts as deputy mayors. At the last elections, the PP won ten seats, leaving it one short of a simple majority, and so in order to rule, it signed a pact with the UM.
Mayor Delgado considers this pact to still be valid.
The socialists in Calvia, however, accused the PP of failing to respect a pact on “defection from one party to another” by using Thomás to win the vote. Socialist spokesman Antoni Manchado said that Thomás's support for the PP was a “violation of the agreement between the PP and the socialists to prevent the illegitimate trafficking of votes.” He added that it was now up to the UM to decide whether or not the pact with the PP will be maintained after the crisis in Calvia.
And, he said, his party will not collaborate with a ruling team which includes a “defector.” Returning to the matter of the Nova Santa Ponsa and Golf de Santa Ponsa estates, he said that his party was opposed to the council accepting them for 2.5 million euros less than what the promotors, the Nigorra family, had been prepared to pay in 2003. He denied that these estates did not have basic services and said that the municipality was the loser in what he called “a bad agreement, the only justification for which was the Mayor's friendship with Juan Nigorra.” Deputy leader Rosa Estaras yesterday declined to comment on the state of the pact between the PP and UM.
Earlier in the week, Jose Maria Rodriguez, the Balearic secretary general of the PP, had said that the party gave priority to maintaining its pact with the UM.