"In Setcases, the mayor's chair is cursed"

BarcelonaIn Setcases, musical chairs is not just a game for children, but for politicians. In eight years, there have been three motions of no confidence to remove the mayor, and all three, paradoxically, have been promoted by councilors from the same party as the mayor. This Monday, the third was consummated. Three of the five councilors from a list linked to ERC, the only party in the council, have decided to oust the mayor due to "disagreements" and "lack of communication and transparency" when making decisions.

The initiators of the motion were Francesc Marcer—the new mayor—Silvia Bassagañas, and Cristina Gardell, who asserted their majority to dethrone Joan Casadevall, who only had the support of the Councilor for Culture, Núria Vila, and who refused to yield the baton. The dissident councilors admitted that the new POUM project was the straw that broke the camel's back, because they believe the current mayor promoted the project without sufficient consensus within the council. "We decided to temporarily halt it so we could review it, with the aim of not harming any of the town's residents, but then the mayor, by decree, pushed it through," Marcer complained to the media after the plenary session.

Some residents don't hide their surprise, despite the constant musical chairs. "I'm 88 years old and I've never seen that before: now it's those from the same party who are fighting," laments Josep Descamps. This retired carpenter doesn't mince his words when it comes to attacking the replacements: "I don't know what the hell is bothering them, they put him in today and take him out tomorrow," he says, emphasizing that, in his opinion, the current mayor was doing a good job. "It's a disgrace, they change them every now and then," he concludes indignantly.

Some take it with humor. This is the case of Marc Peiris, who runs Ca la Núria, one of the two pharmacies in this small town of fewer than 200 inhabitants, next to a butcher shop. "The mayor's chair is cursed, they should throw it in the fire," he says, laughing. A curse that she attributes to the fact that the various mayors make agreements without seeking consensus: "I don't know what it is about this position, but the mayors take the plunge with mayoral decrees, believing they have unilateral control of the city council." In a town where fewer than a hundred people live year-round, there are those who prefer not to get into trouble: "I don't care, I understand that if they throw him out, he won't do too well," a resident, uncomfortable with this new political earthquake, simply states.

The last three mayors have not completed their terms.

Disagreements between elected officials have been a constant in recent years in Setcases, to the point that none of the last three mayors have been able to complete their term. And as if it were Groundhog Day, the councilors who ousted the incumbent mayor have accused him of governing without listening to their opinions. Throughout this series, the protagonists are always the same, running for office under different parties, sometimes coming out well and sometimes not.

The mayor and the councilor now being ousted from the government pushed through a motion of no confidence against their fellow Republican candidate, Anna Vila, in January 2022, a year and a half before the end of the previous term. And then, Casadevall, who was the number two on the ticket, was elected mayor with the support of the opposition Socialist councilor, Carlos Fernández. Francesc Marcer, also a Socialist, who has now run for ERC and will be the new mayor, abstained, while the mayor, Anna Vila, naturally, voted against.

Anna Vila had won the 2019 elections with the ERC party, but two years earlier she had already won the mayor's office. She had done so, then from the Socialist party ranks, with a motion, precisely, against Carlos Fernández, then mayor, who would take revenge five years later by joining forces with the two ERC councilors to oust her. Her "opaque and individualistic" management was also the reason they gave for her replacement. The motion was passed with the votes of Anna Vila and another Socialist councilor, Santi Molas, and Joan Casadevall, the outgoing mayor who at the time headed the CiU list. A third councilor from the PSC list, Miquel Giménez, was the only one who voted against it because the former mayor did not appear at the plenary session and would leave the town outraged by his dismissal.