Almuñécar has just approved next year’s budget but to save you all time: the governing parties think it’s wonderful and the opposition think it’s utter rubbish.

But seeing as you, undeterred, continue to read, I’ll plunge on with the details.

Now, so that you know who is who, the governing party PP, which did not win the most votes in the last election, teamed up with such unlikely bedfellows as the far-left party, Izquierda Unida – Podemos to give the mayoralty to the conservative candidate, Trinidad Herrera.

However, the person who constantly receives more votes than anybody else in the local elections, Juan Carlos Benavides, is such a divisive figure in Almuñécar politics that the far left would rather pull their foreskins over their own heads rather than see Benny regain the mayoralty. So we have four parties teaming together to hand the mayoralty to one of their number – our conservative Mayor, Trini.

So, the fantastic four voted together to get Trini’s budget packet through despite the opposition from Benny’s party (CA) and the socialist party, (PSOE)

Now, the interesting thing is that the Benny’s party offered his nine votes to back the socialist candidate Rocio Palacios as mayor, even though her party only had three votes, and it would have worked, had the IU-Podemos, super lefties merely abstained with their one vote. But to everybody’s surprise, the far-left party threw in their lot with the centre-right party and Trini became the Mayor.

I bet you had wished that you had taken my advice and not read further than the first paragraph, right?

So, now you know why the 2021 budget was approved and why certain parties voted against them.

The budget has an enlarged social section, which has been effectively doubled – the Home-Help Department got 400,000 euros, for instance. The Board of Tourism’s budget was increased by 22% and a quarter of a million was set aside as direct aid for small businesses.

There are also funds earmarked for the Municipal Market project, for renovations to La Herradura’s Plaza de la Independencia, for instance, as well as new sporting infrastructure.

As for the opposition parties, the socialists complain, amongst other things, that the expected earnings are unreal as it includes 1.3m euros for the licence and taxes on the construction of the “new marina.” Neither, says, Sra. Palacios, does it take into account the 2.2m deficit from 2019.

Finally, we come to Benny who considered the budget as “divorced from economic reality.” He considers the funds allotted as direct aid to the town’s suffering small business as “wholly inadequate.”

Now, even I am bored with this so we’ll finish here.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)