The enduring significance of the municipality

The dictator clearly differed in that he wasn’t about to abandon the Spanish state, but such was the belief in the municipality that a statute was drawn up in 1924 which was intended to regenerate municipal life. The regime’s motives had to do with breaking the corrupt system of ‘caciquismo’. This word was first introduced into the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary in 1884. It had two meanings. One was the domination or influence of the ‘cacique’ (a political boss) in a specific place. The other was abusive interference by wielding power and influence. Caciquismo had created a sham democracy and Primo de Rivera was determined to eradicate it.

Among other things, this statute envisaged so-called open councils in municipalities of up to 500 people. All the voters would be councillors. As a blueprint for participative local democracy, even Podemos, when they first emerged in their far-left guise, couldn’t match that.

As it was to turn out, Primo de Rivera didn’t have much success with this statute. Nevertheless, his view of regenerating democracy focused on the municipalities and not on provinces or indeed the state. In this regard, he was paying more than just lip service to a centuries-old system and philosophy of public administration. Municipalism, much though it might be said to be a cornerstone of anarchist thinking, has existed as a major force for at least 900 years.

The origins of the municipality on the Iberian Peninsula are disputed. One theory is that they were an extension of local administration from Roman times. Another is that they came from the era of the Concilium Visigodo, the Visigoth system of organisation in a manner akin to church dioceses from the late sixth century to the early eighth century. A further one has it that they were more improvised than planned, as had been the style of the Romans, and stemmed from specific needs, such as defence. What is certain is that there wasn’t a particularly uniform approach. This was to really only emerge in the High Middle Ages, roughly around the twelfth century.

As far as Mallorca was concerned, the concept of the municipality didn’t exist until after the Catalan conquest. During the Muslim era there had been administrative regions, but the Catalans and Aragonese were to graft on a system that was more or less the same in the Catalan lands as it was in mediaeval Castile and Leon.

It was King Jaume I’s son, Jaume II, who provided the impetus for the formation of the island’s municipalities as we know them today. Almost eighty years after the conquest, royal decree and privilege created a host of what were referred to as ‘vila’. Essentially agricultural-urban settlements, by the start of the fourteenth century there were 33 units akin to municipalities. Palma had been the first in 1245. At the head of these municipalities was to be the ‘batle’, which best translates as bailiff. Batle is still the Catalan word for a mayor.

There was to be little alteration to this nascent municipal map. Campanet was a curiosity in that, to its consternation, it at one point found itself rolled in with Sa Pobla. Autonomy was re-established in 1372. A notable case concerned Deya. Valldemossa was determined to keep hold of its neighbour: Deya wanted shot of Valldemossa. Following some fifty years of litigation, the split finally occurred and Deya became its own entity in 1583.

Nothing else happened until 1812, which was when the Liberal Constitution of Cádiz was passed. Rebelling against the absolutist monarch, Ferdinand VII, those charged with drafting the constitution were influenced by the French Revolution. Five months after the storming of the Bastile and the creation of the Paris Commune, the National Assembly passed a law for independently created communes. The lowest level of administration in France, the communes were nonetheless conceived as being representative of a perfect society, stripped of tradition and conservatism. There were peculiar echoes of the Revolution in Primo de Rivera’s statute.

The constitution allowed new municipalities, akin to communes, to be established. Búger was one that responded almost immediately, splitting from Campanet. Others came along, such as Lloseta and Son Servera.

This was then how things remained until the dictatorship and its statute. There were places in Mallorca that had been agitating for independence for decades. They now saw their opportunity, and the law was firmly on their side. And so in 1925, the municipalities of Consell, Lloret de Vistalegre, Mancor de la Vall and Ses Salines were all established. They split, respectively, from Alaro, Sineu, Selva and Santanyi. These four municipalities will be celebrating one hundred years of independence in 2025.

There are 53 municipalities in Mallorca. Ariany, which broke from Petra in 1982, is the most recent. It took many years for Ariany to receive the green light. After the making of municipalities in the 1920s, the thinking altered. New administrations would entail more expense, and there are those who would argue that the 8,131 municipalities in current-day Spain are an anachronism in serious need of rationalisation. The smallest is Illán de Vacas in the Toledo province; all of three people. Mallorca’s smallest, Escorca with under 200 registered inhabitants, is huge by comparison.

There was talk of municipal reform by the Partido Popular government of Mariano Rajoy from 2011. This was mainly a response to the financial crisis and as a result of the austerity policies intended to eradicate public administration debt. But nothing ever came of the talk, an indication perhaps of just how ingrained the concept of the municipality is and of the sheer history over many centuries.

Municipalism is something to which all political parties adhere. They often make a point of it. The present Balearic Government is no different in this respect, advocating policies that will delegate responsibilities to town halls. However they have been perceived, be this by mediaeval kings, dictators or anarchists, the municipalities have been paramount. They represent local democracy, often to the nth degree, but they are more than simply administrative units. They are an expression of identity. There are ‘alcudiencs’ or ‘calvianers’, for instance. In one of the 100th anniversary municipalities, Consell, they are ‘consellers’, which can be taken to mean councillors. Over 4,000 of them. Rather more than Primo de Rivera had imagined.