Castelló (EFE).- The main candidates for mayor of Castelló coincide, to questions from EFE, in demanding the declaration of the Fiestas de la Magdalena as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), but they disagree regarding the management and organization of the party: some reaffirm the current model, others ask to “depoliticize” them, or demand more autonomy for the party.
For the mayoress of Castelló and socialist candidate for re-election, Amparo Marco, the current model -based on the pillars of the Municipal Council and the Festival Board- is “typical of a big city” and in which “all the groups involved are ”.
“We take our founding festivities very seriously,” says the mayoress, and reiterates her desire to have it declared an Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest, such as the Fallas de València or the Hogueras de Alicante.
Consensus for some Magdalena festivities that “belong to everyone”
According to the Compromís candidate, Ignasi Garcia, it is necessary to “promote our genealogy, explain the reasons for the festival and what they represent”, and advocates a consensus and dialogue between the different actors, because the Castelló festivals “are for everyone and all of them and their partisan use only generates rejection in society as a whole”.
The Unides Podem candidate for mayor, Marisol Barceló, endorses the Festival Board, which “reinforces their democratic control and guarantees control of public spending”, while she is committed to continuing to promote the “popular and participatory character” of the festivities, promoting the role of the associative fabric and reducing the “commodification” that occurs in some cases.
However, the candidate for mayor of the PP, Begoña Carrasco, criticizes the current model for the “political interventionism” that in his opinion the current local government has applied, which has celebrated the Magdalena “with chaos of protocol and organization, delays in payments , elimination of events and the loss of many traditional festivals”.
For this reason, the popular candidate is committed to recovering the Festival Board and modifying the statutes so that they “have autonomy again” and that the festive people “organize them”
Return freedom to the “món de la festa”
For the mayor of Ciudadanos, Eduardo del Pozo, the main thing is to restore freedom to the “món de la festa”, to organize them “to the detriment of the freedom that the Fadrell government took from them to impose their management”
Finally, the Vox candidate, Antonio Ortolá, asks that the Party Board “be depoliticized”, because “it cannot be the councilor on duty who presides over it”, and “the world of the party must be heard, while it has been asked what the citizens would think “if the alignment of a CD Castellón party was decided by the mayoress”, as is the case today with the festivities.