Did he ever go away? That’s a good question, but that fact is… Benny’s back and running for the mayoralty of Almuñécar in the 2019 Municipal Election.
He is a doctor by profession but has just retired from that now that he is 65, but he is far from retiring from politics as his announcement before the gathered press indicates.
This is the 11th time that he has run for mayor because he has run in each municipal election campaign since the return to Democracy, which was in 1979. Furthermore, he has been the most voted option in most – there were two exceptions: 1991 and 2015.
The truth is, politically speaking, things have become a tad boring with Benny taking the back stage instead of the limelight. If you ask just about anybody who remembers the Benny years, they would sum up his times in office as: he’s done some good things and he’s done some bad thing, but at least he has done things.
Half the town as we know it today wouldn’t have existed if his administrations hadn’t approved the 1986 PGOU; there would be no P-4 or most of the San Cristobal urbanizaciones. You can add to that the bus station, the aquarium, the Parque Majuelo, the water park, the sports stadium, the medical centre, the P-4 high school and changing San Miguel Castle from being literally the municipal cemetery into a historic tourism attraction… the list goes on.
The old timers here might lament the disappearance of the Almuñécar of yesteryear, when it was much smaller and cosier but when newcomers arrive to begin life here, it’s good to see it through their eyes, because Almuñécar has a lot going for it.
Benny could always count on the votes from the Barrio de los Marinos and Barrio La Paloma, as well as the old-town residents. The elderly there always remembered Doctor Benavides who attended to them privately and didn’t charge. Benny can never be accused of being stupid.
The darker side of the Benny years were the times when people literally didn’t dare to voice negative opinions in public places and of course, the municipal market and aquarium that fell apart in very few years following their inauguration.
Do I think that Benny will win the Mayoralty? No, because his voting base has disappeared or dwindled, at the very least. But Benny has the Almuñécar mayoralty in his blood and he is never more alive than when he is governing the town from the Mayor’s office. He might surprise us all and come up trumps – we shall have to wait and see.
This will be a very interesting municipal-election period, that’s for sure.
(News: Almuñécar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)