Aurora Carbonell of the ERC party has been re-elected Mayor of Sitges, with 11 councillor votes, the minimum number required to revalidate the position.
The plenary of investiture held on Saturday certified the agreement reached in the previous days by the four groups that will make up the new local government: the ERC, Sitges Grup Independent, Verds En Comú Podem and Fets per Sitges contributed their 10 votes to Aurora Carbonell. Guanyem Sitges, which will form part of the opposition, also voted for the ERC candidate.
The Junts per Sitges candidate, Mònica Gallardo, received eight votes, four from her party and four from the socialists PSC. The councillors of the PP and Vox voted for themselves.
Carbonell will become mayor for three more years, and in the fourth year she will pass the post to Carme Gasulla, the Verds En Comú Podem candidate, as set out in the agreement between the four parties that form the local government.
During her speech, once re-elected, Carbonell made it clear that her new government is partisan and diverse in origin, ‘just as Sitges is’. She announced the Sitges 2040 Strategic Plan, ‘a great town agreement where the social, economic and environmental fabric is present, which will shape the Sitges of future generations’. Carbonell called for new economic opportunities, ‘to not depend solely on tourism’, and in training, ‘to be a university town’.
The mayor also stated that the new four-party government is made up of formations that were in the executive in the previous mandate and others that were in the opposition: ‘This will allow us to maintain the successes and improvements achieved, and correct those where we failed.’ She also denounced that in recent days we have received ‘pressures that we cannot democratically accept or tolerate’.
Mònica Gallardo from Junts, meanwhile, described the investiture agreement as that of ‘four non-winning forces that have made an alternative government possible’. She pointed out that ‘Sitges had asked for a change’ and that ‘the people of Sitges are entitled to disagree’.
The candidate of the PSC, Luismi García, said that ‘we assume our role in the opposition, with loyalty and respect’ and announced that this Group remains available to the public so that ‘Sitges recovers illusions, seriousness, responsibility, pride and honour’.
David Martínez (SGI) highlighted the ‘progressive, transformative and municipalist project that will govern Sitges from today’ and remarked that ‘the differences of the past can be saved, because we love Sitges’.
Carme Gasulla (Verds En Comú Podem) said that ‘decisions are made from within’ to explain her group’s incorporation into the government. ‘Aurora, we are with you and the rest of our colleagues,’ she said, also calling for ‘dialogue, consensus, generosity and breadth of views’. Gasulla added that ‘no town grows from confrontation and division’.
PP and Vox both criticised the new government agreement. Eva García (PP) said that ‘we are very concerned that nothing is known about the new pact. There is a signed document, but they have not made it public’. José Antonio Gilabert (Vox) emphasised that ‘the votes of Vox will give a voice to those who have been silenced’ and said that the agreement ‘has contradictions with the government programme of some of the forces that make it up’.
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