The Rules Of The Playground

Campanet is one of many villages in Mallorca which masquerades as a town. With a population of just over 2,500 people, it hardly merits the title of town. In Spanish (or Catalan), it wouldn't receive such a title, but in English, it does, for the sole reason that it has its own town hall.

Not a lot happens in Campanet. Its proximity to the motorway means that it isn't off the beaten track, and it does lay claim to reasons why it might be visited - the caves and the aquatic phenomenon of the "Fonts Ufanes" - but like other villages, it is easy to overlook it.

It is rare for Campanet to register for any reason other than that the springs are being particularly active (which they have been, thanks to recent deluges). On one occasion, a year or so ago, it did come to wider attention because of regular cuts to the water supply; the system was so antiquated, it was falling to pieces.

It now has another, doubtlessly brief moment in the spotlight owing to a little local difficulty, and it all has to do with its town hall.

In January this year, the president of the Mallorca hoteliers federation suggested that, as a way of saving money, the town halls in Mallorca should be done away with. Though she argued that all the ayuntamientos should go, she probably had in mind the likes of Campanet in particular. What, after all, is the point of a village of 2,500 people having a town hall?

There is sense to the hoteliers federation argument, and it is one that has been made by others, but were it to be acted upon, it would undermine the principle of localism and of the devolution of representation, even to the smallest of communities. It would also run up against the forces of loyalty to these communities, the strength of which resides in families, the local networks and sheer parochialism.

The principle of localism is a sound one in that it takes democracy ever closer to the ordinary people. The strength of the system is, though, also its weakness, not just in making local government as a whole more expensive but also in creating what amount to fiefdoms, rife with rivalries.

It was once said to me, about Muro, that the town hall is a playground for adults. The individuals know each other, grew up with each other and had their fallings-out in the school playgrounds which they now take into later life. It is that strength of families, networks and parochialism that fuels small-town (and village) competition, squabbles and vendettas.

Campanet's little local difficulty has its roots in events that go back two decades. The decision of the mayor, Joan Amengual (PSOE), to chuck councillors from the PSM socialists out of his few-months-old coalition administration has more to it than the mayor having apparently taken umbrage at the PSM councillors having organised a committee to arrange festivities for Three Kings.

Petty this may seem, and is, but the PSM councillors having seemingly gone behind the mayor's back has echoes of what happened in 1991. Amengual, who, in true dynastic fashion, had succeeded his father as PSOE chief, was the then second in command at the town hall to the PSM mayor, Francesc Aguiló. Amengual withdrew PSOE support for the then coalition when Aguiló, without telling him, called a meeting with the village's pensioners.

The bad blood, over something this inconsequential, has festered ever since. Aguiló went on to be mayor until 2007. He was succeeded by the PSM's Francesc Morell who was mayor in coalition (with Amengual) and who gave up the mayorship - just one of the peculiarities of how pacts work in Mallorca's town halls - so that Amengual could serve for a year.

And now, PSOE and Amengual, finally in a position of dominance, have, or it would appear, taken their revenge. Moreover, Amengual has said that he had not agreed that Morell could share the mayorship and take over in 2013.

Amengual maintains that there have been other factors behind his breaking of the pact with the PSM, but it is being seen as simply the outcome of a long-standing feud predicated on utterly trivial matters.

In the small towns and villages, such feuds can and do arise, and they dominate local politics; Santa Margalida is just one other example. They are not really about the rules of politics but about who controls the fiefdoms, and lend support to calls to scrap the town halls - and not just on financial grounds. They are really about the rules of the playground.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.