Gearing up for the elections in Pollensa

Relinquishing the mayoral wand by handing it over to Andrés Nevado was an agreement of the pact between Cifre’s Tots and Nevado’s UMP after the 2019 election. The pact attracted two other parties - the Partido Popular and El Pi. All four groups have councillors in executive positions at the town hall, but just two of them have decided to team up for the election in May. Tots have formed an alliance not with the UMP but with El Pi. They will be running on the same ticket but be keeping their names, a sort of - by translation - ‘everyone and the pine’.

Why are they doing this? According to Tomeu, there has been “good coordination” between the two parties over the course of the current administration, while El Pi have provided support when Tots have presented initiatives to the Balearic parliament and the Council of Mallorca for improvements in Pollensa, “something which has not happened with the opposition parties, who have representatives governing these institutions”.

On election day, therefore, Tomeu will be number one on the Tots-El Pi list - the candidate for mayor (again). Josep Marquet of El Pi will be number two. It is not being ruled out that other parties might join this coalition, which could only mean the UMP and/or the PP. Whether they join or not, it is curious that a coalition is being formed by the right and centre at a time when the coalition of the left, Junts Avançam, is splintering. Its component parties will run separately at the election - or this is the supposition for now - while another group from the left, the Alternativa, announced some weeks ago that it would not be standing at the next election.

In Sa Pobla, meanwhile, the current mayor, Llorenç Gelabert of El Pi, has announced that he will not be seeking re-election. He has plenty of other things in his life - he is the boss of the Gelabert printing company, at present going through change brought about by digitalisation, “which involves a lot more work”.

Both Gelabert and Cifre had similar routes to where they are now. They are both former members of the Partido Popular and both became disenchanted with the PP when José Ramón Bauzá was president and moved the PP in the Balearics away from what had been an historical policy of regionalism and looking to keep a distance from commands emanating from Madrid.