It is a bit confusing when you have a small seaside town, which is governed by a larger town up in the hills, which is the case of La Rábita, on the coast, within the municipality of Albuñol. So, is it any wonder that they want to govern themselves?

For the last two years, La Rábita, with a standing population of 2,000, but which expands greatly during the summer months, has been demanding its independence from Abuñol, which is ten kilometres, at least, up the valley. The Mayor of Albuñol, Juan María Rivas, who is pretty sick and tired of it, is thinking about proposing a referendum to see if the inhabitants of this seaside town really want it, or it is just a whim of the politicians down there.

In the Mayor’s opinion, an ELA (semi-independent municipal dependency) would be unworkable as it would mean duplicating services. It’s better, he considers, to be just one big municipality. The trouble is that this conservative Mayor governs only with a minority cabinet and the proposal has to be approved at a plenary meeting of the council.

The provincial authority (Diputación) and the regional one, (la Junta) have both given a big fat negative to the idea, although the Partido Independiente de La Rábita have lodged an appeal against this administrative finding.

Sr. Rivas is convinced that Los Rabiteños are happy with the way things are being run and would vote against independence. Besides, he believes that it is all one or two families that are behind the move, solely for personal motives.

On the other hand, Nicolás Ayala, who is the independence party’s councillor in the Town Council, sees it completely differently. He says that the Junta gave a negative response to the proposal because the request did not have the Albuñol Town Hall’s approval. His party, he says, is backed by the other opposition parties (PSOE & CA) and that between them they had obtained a thousand signatures in favour, which were reduced to 600 after the governing party rejected some of them.

The request for independence was approved with the combined votes of the opposition parties and the abstention of the ruling party, so the Town Council should have backed the proposal to the Junta, which it didn’t. Sr. Ayala believes that a call for a referendum is just a delaying tactic to put off having to back the proposal.

“La Rábita is a town that goes back a long way and shouldn’t be under the wardship of Albuñol,” reasoned the independence party’s councillor.

(News: Rabita, east coast, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)