Partaloa has broken some sort of record – its third mayor in a row has been barred from holding public office! This tiny backwater of just 915 people seems to have an abnormally high rate of incompetent politicians. Or does it? The story so far….
Antonio Peñuela has just been barred from holding public office for seven years by the national audience for sacking the town clerk without following proper protocol when he first became mayor back in 2011.
The clerk got fired by the previous PP mayor, José González. It seems the clerk (an independent functionary) wasn’t too cooperative with the new mayor’s plans and so he had to go, to be replaced with someone more malleable. José got barred for eight years and handed over to Antonio. But Antonio refused to bring the clerk back. Antonio’s number two, a councillor called Enrique Montalvo, also got done for aiding and abetting.
According to the clerk, all men had strong links with a local building company which was in trouble for building homes in the country. The clerk said that none of the men “were comfortable with the idea of collaborating with the environmental police or the public prosecutor in their investigation into alleged planning crimes in the town”. Well, you can see where I’m going with that.
Previous mayor Federico Molina had previously got 18 months jail and barred for nine years for crimes against urban planning and another charge of failing to investigate a crime.
Just to make life even more interesting, Antonio and Federico were PSOE. José was PP. But José and Antonio formed a coalition to take over the council, the only PP-PSOE coalition in the province. The PSOE promptly fired the lot of them and they formed an independent grouping.
Dirty thing, local politics.
We have a similar situation in Llíber, Alicante. 18 arrests , six lawyers let off all charges , one of their fathers is a judge, the remaining politicians run the town for the next 6 years whilst a class action of 109 people and 300 illegal homes wait for a court case against them. Total population 1100. Approx 600 houses , 50% illegal.
All I can say is SHAME ON SPAIN AND ON THE JUNTA DE ANDALUCIA!!!! They were aware of all the building going on right from the word GO!!!! The whole of Spain is corrupt affecting both Spaniards and Foreigners alike!!!! In fact most of the EU countries are corrupt!!!!! Hence you’ll get no joy anywhere. The abogados all take backhanders from the developers !!! The Town halls have their noses in the trough!!!! It seems Arboleas is about as non corrupt as you can get – we are lucky to be under them. Or am I speaking too soon??????
Every time I come to Spain and see the Spanish news another corrupt official is facing charges. They are a disgrace and the unlucky people who buy houses in good faith are the ones who are punished, not the builders who were put there by the politicians with their back-handers!
No he hasn’t he’s still in office!!