The Magic Wand

The "vara". Wand, rod, pole. Take your pick. A magic wand. Spare the rod. Poles apart. They all seem somehow appropriate in the aftermath of the game of pass the parcel to see who ends up unwrapping the mayoral wand.

New mayors may hope that they can wave their wands and make all the problems disappear, but the problems are only just beginning, and are mainly those of fractiousness.

The municipalities of Alcúdia, Pollensa and Santa Margalida highlight how fractiousness consumes the operations of town halls. In Alcúdia's case, it will be new; for Pollensa and Santa Margalida, it will be business as usual.

The tensions that will now exist are only partly to do with party politics. They are more personal than this. And no more so than in Santa Margalida where Miguel Cifre has been handed the baton of mayoral office once again, fourteen years after a motion of censure resulted in his being kicked out of office.

Santa Margalida is a town of mutual dislike among its leading political lights. It's why Cifre and his party of change couldn't attract any other party with which to coalesce. He'll run the town hall, if run is the right word, with a minority three short of that which was required. He'll be a lame duck (aptly enough for a town which stages the annual nonsense of the duck throwing), and one despised by the Partido Popular in particular.

Another lame duck is now the second in command at Alcúdia, despite the fact that she abstained from giving any candidate for mayor her support. Carme Garcia's decision to cosy up to the Partido Popular, one that went against the wishes of her party, the Mallorcan socialists, has unleashed a tsunami into what had been a rare oasis of calmness in the politics of local towns.

At every opportunity, at every meeting of the town hall, she can now expect to be hounded, attacked and vilified. And she will have brought it on herself. Photos of the councillors in Alcúdia, taken after the meeting to select Coloma Terrasa as mayor, were very revealing. Terrasa was smiling, wand in hand, ex-mayor Llompart was grinning and PSOE's Pere Malondra was laughing. Garcia looked even more frumpish and put-upon than usual.

Llompart and Malondra further exposed her decision to side with the PP as an act of opportunism. It was rumoured that they would try something, and so they did. Malondra was nominated to be mayor. Had Garcia voted for him, a natural political ally for someone who claims to be of the left, then Malondra would have become mayor. She didn't. The boys of the Convergència and PSOE were laughing at her, and so it will be for four years.

Pollensa doesn't have a lame duck, it has a Tommy Cifre installed as mayor. Two Tommy Cifres, there are only two Tommy Cifres. Thankfully. It's confusing enough with two of them. One Tommy Cifre, there's only one Tommy Cifre in the PP. The new mayor, and not the one Tommy Cifre from the Mallorcan socialists. Cifre, together with the La Lliga lovely, Malena Estrany, will hope to restore some order to Pollensa town hall. They surely can't do any worse than what passed for administration under Joan Cerdà.

Fortunately, both Cifre and Estrany are respected, which was not the case with Cerdà who lost any semblance of respect as a result of the fiasco over the aborted pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa. It was this which turned him into a lame duck for much of his period of office. The charge of lack of consultation that was levelled at him (among other charges) is to be addressed by Cifre. He has promised "citizen participation", and a system of monthly meetings with associations across Pollensa is meant to come into being.

The PP-La Lliga coalition, one short of a majority, will be praying it can rely on the support of the one Unió Mollera Pollencina councillor. If not, and despite what respect there might be for Cifre and Estrany, then the fun and games in Pollensa are likely to continue.

But fun and games are what we want. They are what makes Mallorcan politics the theatre of the absurd that it so often is. A stage for illusionists who in every town conjure up a generally misplaced sense of their own importance. They wave their wands on new regimes and in a puff of smoke the old ones disappear. That's magic.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.