The rojiblanco feeling has marked the steps of José Luis Martínez-Almeida in the Madrid City Council. Lose, suffer, endure, dream and win. The last four years have been a kind of roller coaster for him, a continuous going up and down from the clouds, as Sabina would say, which ends this Saturday with his particular double in Cibeles. Almeida, except for a last-minute surprise, will be sworn in for the second consecutive time as mayor of the capital with the support of his 28 councillors, this time with an absolute majority, after a complicated mandate peppered with scandals.

The session has nothing to do with that of 2019. Almeida, although he reaped the worst results for the PP in Madrid at the time, took the baton of command from Manuela Carmena thanks to a last-minute pact with Vox to support the coalition of the popular and Ciudadanos. He governed almost by rebound, like someone who raises an Intercontinental without having been European champion.

The last legislature could well justify the legend of the pupas linked to Atlético de Madrid. The pandemic, as in the rest of the world, swept away all the plans in Madrid and the expectations of the Almeida government. In his case, however, it meant a turning point on a personal level that skyrocketed his popularity after the signing of the so-called Acuerdos de la Villa. When the population demanded great consensus to face the crisis due to the covid, the councilor exploited his transversal profile to the maximum and agreed with all the opposition, without exception. When he was interviewed on the street, onlookers crowded around him and interrupted the connection with applause.. There was still a lot left, but it was already impossible not to talk about the majority.

The reality is that the road to this Saturday's plenary session has not been easy. The mayor's embrace on May 28 with two of his closest collaborators, Inmaculada Sanz and Borja Carabante, is a sample of how much this legislature has cried and laughed. Like the two banks of the river on a derby night.

A roller coaster

José Luis Martínez-Almeida went from completely to nothing, from an enormous national projection to his popularity and recognition being diluted like a sugar cube. The position of national spokesman for his party took its toll on him and critics soon arose due to the incompatibility of both positions, both in the government team and in the opposition.. The shared reflection is that the PP had gained a spokesperson, but Madrid had lost a mayor. The city projects, reiterated these sources, remained in the background.

And then came the first scandal. The mayor was trapped in the fratricidal war between Pablo Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in no man's land and as a collateral victim of friendly fire. The Madrid City Council exploded after learning about the espionage plot of the national leadership of the PP against the brother of the regional president, supposedly with municipal resources. Re-election was already a utopia. What was on everyone's lips was the motion of censure, with Begoña Villacís as a possible ally of the left.

The mayor of Madrid had barely recovered from the coup when a second episode dynamited the consistory just over a year before the regional and municipal elections. The management of the pandemic returned like a boomerang with the Masks case and the investigation of an alleged scam of 6 million euros for the purchase of material that involved his cousin. The coalition government between the PP and Ciudadanos, as the sources consulted recognized at the time, was on the brink of collapse.

But politics, like football, always gives an opportunity for revenge.. And party by party, the popular leader recomposed his figure. The investigation into the masks exempted the City Council of the capital and any official or person linked to the mayor from all responsibility, while Isabel Díaz Ayuso pardoned her partner and trusted him to reinstate popular absolutism in Madrid more than a decade later. In the councilor's environment they sighted the target again just a few weeks before the appointment with the polls, calm because their boss had recovered his form. And so it was, again up and down, from hell to heaven. The “win and win again” coined by a wise man as a source of inspiration. The rojiblanco recipe that became big in Cibeles.