The merger of Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena, two municipalities that agreed to this process in a consultation held in 2022, has entered into a political and social crisis after the constitution of the new corporations, since Don Benito has been elected as mayoress, María Fernanda Sánchez, whose party is very reluctant to such a union.
Don Benito
In fact, the new Dombenitense mayoress, who has received the support of the PP, and the popular ones of this city have reached an agreement that includes two premises: two-year alternation at the head of the Mayor’s Office and holding a new popular consultation on the merger in this municipality in the third year of the new legislature.
“There will be a consultation, because the people demand it,” said the mayoress minutes after picking up the municipal cane; a consultation “with transparency, with an organic law and with a percentage according to the city of Don Benito.”
In the same way, he has underlined the need to “calm the tension” within the Dombenitense society, although he has pointed out that “some people and parties have made it tense in an interested way.”
In fact, the plenary session of constitution of the new corporation has been marked by the continuous allusions to the merger, for and against, by the attending public, and that has forced the Age Table to ask for silence and respect.
Abroad, this tension has also been felt, with supporters of “yes” and “no”, and with some disqualifications of the new mayoress, who has been accompanied by police officers at the exit of the plenary session.
The new consultation has also been announced by the leader of the PP in the corporation, Pedro Noblejas, whose party at the regional level supported and supported starting the merger project, but at a local level it has been critical of the procedure.
Asked if the merger will be paralyzed until the third year of the legislature, the date of the new consultation, Noblejas has said that “there is no reason to stop it because nothing has really been done”, although he has appealed to Villanueva and Don Benito ” walk together.”
Villanueva de la Serena
In Villanueva de la Serena, eight kilometers away between their respective urban centers, the socialist Miguel Ángel Gallardo has received the baton, in what will be his sixth consecutive term with an absolute majority.
Gallardo has expressed his respect for the new government that today has been formed in Don Benito, but “without letting us -the villanovenses- be contaminated by those who want to sow resentment.”
However, Gallardo has been convinced that “society will take the lead and the majority that could not agree today will emerge” to achieve the merger, alluding to a possible PP and PSOE pact in Don Benito that would have prevented the arrival of Siempre Don Benito to the local government.
“If we hate each other, it will destroy us all,” said Gallardo, who has asked for “empathy and affection with all the residents of Don Benito, those who are committed to a shared future and with those who, thinking differently today, will benefit equally” of the merger project.
In his speech, Gallardo also had words for the outgoing mayor of Don Benito, the socialist José Luis Quintana, who “has paid a high price and has suffered persecution and insults for maintaining consistency and agreement” in defense of the municipal merger. In his opinion, in Don Benito “politics has not worked and when this happens, when it fails to hold citizens accountable, society is divided and harmony, coexistence and social peace are lost.”