Face masks’ silliness in Alcudia

Archive image of a council meeting in Alcudia. | Archive

Andrew EdeAlcudia06/02/2021 08:19

There are things that go on at council meetings which generate mild controversy for very little reason, not least when there is a motion that is most unlikely to ever be acted upon.
At the apparent instigation of Vox, all the political groups at the town hall, with the exception of Podemos, put their names to a motion calling for the free supply of masks. This wasn’t free supply in Alcudia, it was for the whole population of the Balearics.

At the town hall, there is one Vox councillor, Juan Sendin, and one Podemos councillor, Concepción Baleato. As you might imagine, they tend not to agree with each other, so when the masks’ motion was registered for Friday’s council meeting, Concepción and Podemos let it be known that they wouldn’t be having anything to do with it because Vox had proposed it, or were certainly there with all other groups in giving the motion backing.
The Podemos view was that Vox have “shown their absolute contempt for the use of masks and for Covid preventive measures”.

A statement went on to refer to a corporate establishment of sixteen councillors at the town hall - all of the councillors except for Concepción - which is “whitewashing an extreme right party which advocates the abolition of regional authorities and the recentralisation of the state, is comparable to the European populist, anti-feminist and Islamophobic right, and which defends the Franco dictatorship and advocates the repeal of the law of historic memory”.

Only some of this, it might be said, had anything to do with face masks. More pertinent was the cost. Podemos said that over 104 million masks would be needed to supply a new one each day to the entire population of the Balearics over the age of six for three months. This would mean, per quarter, a cost of 41,648,292 euros.

Spendthrift Podemos can appear in some respects, but this would be a cost too far. And that of course is what it will be. The motion was pretty pointless, and so, therefore, was the minor controversy.