Ronda’s Partido Popular (PP) yesterday affirmed their current spokesperson, Mari Paz Fernandez will lead the party for the 2011 municipal elections, meaning if the PP attain a majority, Ms Fernandez will be the next mayor of Ronda.
In recent months infighting within the PP had suggested there was some doubt Fernandez would be confirmed with traditionalists in the party favouring a break with the current leadership, and amid rumours Fernandez herself did not want the job.
The provincial president of the PP in Málaga, Elias Bendodo, when announcing Fernandez as mayoral candidate made clear there was no room for internal politics and that the provincial delegation expected Ronda’s activists to pull together behind Fernandez and the team she builds.
In a side swipe at the PSOE, Bendodo questioned whether the PSOE would select current mayor Marín Lara to lead the socialists, and hinted he thought a back room deal would see the mayor dumped in favour of long time PSOE activists.
In a recent Sigma Dos poll, the Partido Popular is projected to take 7 or 8 seats in the next council, and whilst lower than the PSOE, could see the PP govern in coalition with the Partido Andalucista (PA), possibly on similar terms to the last time the PP were in government.
During the last PP government in Ronda, the coalition agreed that for two of the four years between elections the PP would govern, and a similar deal with the PA in 2011 would see Fernandez and Isabel Barriga of the PA share the post of mayor for two years each.
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