Election Fever

On Monday the village woke up with a new mayor. Obviously I’m not suggesting that the last Mayor’s final initiative was one large municipal bed, but the local election count took place over night and there was a change in council. The new council is the PSOE, which is the People’s Socialist Workers of Spain, and is a national party. The last council was also left wing, but was an Extremaduran off shoot of the IU green party, which itself was an offshoot of the IU party. Which is why I can never get far in the elections without thinking of this from the Life of Brian (apologies for bad language):

The vote was quite conclusive, with a 20% swing to the PSOE. While I think the old mayor did a great job, after winning three elections I think there is something to be said for having a change in council. The PP, which is the party in national Government at the moment, doesn’t have much of a showing here, and this time lost 10% of their vote: but given that their vote went from 34 to 30, that’s not really significant.

The elections are always close. The one before we moved here when the old council was voted in had only 4 votes in it – hence the very high turn out of well over 90%.

I noticed when I looked at the new council that I don’t think I give any classes to any of their families, so I wonder if this will have any implications for me. For example the old council paid for me to go into the school, so this may change next year (if we are still here, which, although I hope we’re not, currently looks likely…).