Sumar and PSOE put Vox in the front against the Qatari skyscraper in the port of Malaga

The councilor for Con Málaga Toni Morillas defended in the plenary session this Thursday that the sum of the voters of her party, which is the Sumar franchise in the capital of Malaga, with those of the PSOE and Vox exceed those obtained by the PP in the municipal passes, for which he considers that this conditions the absolute majority achieved by the popular Francisco de la Torre and endorses the call for a citizen consultation on the skyscraper project in the city's port. An initiative that this formation, under its previous name of Adelante Málaga, already tried to promote in 2021, without achieving its objective.

The mayor argued that “the entire opposition bench is against it” and, in this way, seemed to add Santiago Abascal's party on the left-wing front that opposes the construction of the luxury hotel promoted by a Qatari fund. “If all the people who —in the last municipal elections— supported the PSOE, Con Málaga, and even Vox, voted in a consultation on this issue, the skyscraper project would not go ahead,” reiterated Morillas, who reminded the formation green that “on May 17, in the electoral campaign, he said that he would not support” the construction of a structure of more than 110 meters that would rise on the Levante dam.

“Absolute majorities are not a blank check,” the councilor snapped at De la Torre, whom she asked “not to be afraid of democracy”. “Call a popular consultation so that the citizens of Malaga have the opportunity to cast a ballot and decide if they want a skyscraper to be built in front of La Farola”, which is the only lighthouse in Spain with the name of a woman and which this week was declared Well of Cultural Interest (BIC).

It is not the first time that the acronym of the left resorts to the figure of the citizen consultation to try to stop the controversial project. At the beginning of 2021, Adelante Málaga was the one promoting this initiative, and the witness was taken over by the socialist candidate for mayor, Daniel Pérez, who presented the past local elections as a plebiscite on the model of the city that pivoted on the tower. This is what the Councilor for Town Planning, Carmen Casero, recalled, who looked at one bench and another and added: “The representation of each group is more than evident. Words are unnecessary”.

It must be remembered that in the municipal elections in May the PP recovered the absolute majority after two coalition governments with Ciudadanos and 117,577 votes. PSOE —69,840— and Con Málaga —17,655— lost councilors in the first term with the presence of Vox —18,476—. That is why the popular ones, who throughout these years have defended this urban project, feel that the citizens support their position, especially since the vote counts wielded by the councilor of the left-wing coalition do not reinforce their argument.. “There is no greater gesture of citizen participation than the elections themselves,” stressed Casero, who said that “it is lazy for the left to attribute the concept of democracy”.

Antonio Alcázar, who led the candidacy of the green formation, tried to distance himself from the opposition line that Morillas intended to build and specified that they are against the construction of the skyscraper in the port, but not that it be built in another part of the city. During his speech, he announced the abstention of the two councilors of his party to the motion presented by Con Málaga as they did not agree with the “tool” of the consultation because the plenary councilors “already have the mandate of the citizens”.

The representative of the PP, for her part, made ugly the left-wing parties that raised an initiative in defense of the characteristic lighthouse to re-introduce the issue of the port tower. “You, your government, have used this issue in a tortious way, under the protection of La Farola, in which we all agree, to try to knock down a procedure that is legal and legitimate, and that has all the guarantees of the agents involved, such as the state ones where they still govern”.

Toni Morillas, for his part, warned that they have a silver bullet to knock down the project from Moncloa. The one who until last April was part of the Ministry of Equality as director of the Women's Institute recalled that, “in administrative processing, the Council of Ministers will have the last word; and we have no doubt that the new coalition government will oppose there being a luxury hotel that covers our Lamppost”. “We have no doubt, but we want the people of Malaga to have the opportunity to do so at the polls,” he concluded in his last turn to speak. Minutes later, the 16 PP councilors rendered useless the 11 votes of the left and knocked down most of the points of the motion. Except for one, which was approved unanimously, and which defended the protection of the lighthouse.