Before the palace coup in Salobreña that sidelined the Mayor, her party were favourites for the coming municipal elections, but not now.

People voted for her; not for her party. In other words, there were voters who normally backed other political parties but instead voted for her because they had faith in her as a person. She hadn’t made a bad job of being Mayor, although there are good and bad ‘marks’ awarded for her mayoralty.

But then along came Javier Ortega, who had lost the party candidacy for Mayor in 2019 to María Eugenia and had now managed to convince enough card-carrying PSOE voters to back him – hence, Rufino being shouldered out.

But the fact is that well over 2,000 Salobreñeros had voted for her in the last municipal elections, and not just socialist-leaning citizens, as mentioned before.

Now, it looks like the PSOE will lose the coming elections but does Mr Ortega really care? He’s got what he wanted, no matter the cost to his party, it appears.

María Eugenia said in a recent interview, that she had not had time to curry favour with card-holding PSOE members because she had been too busy running the municipality; Mr Ortega had no such impediment,  it seems.

Don’t get me wrong, María Eugenia is no Mother Theresa and she had made a lot of mistakes but the municipality has not done badly under her mayoralty, even with the Covid lockdown right in the middle of it, etc.

One thing is for sure, the other political parties in this race are very grateful to Javier Ortega for removing the biggest obstacle to their reaching the Mayor’s office.

Besides, there’s a new kid on the block, although in reality she is a veteran and an ex-Mayor of Salobreña from back in the early 90s – María Teresa Jiménez, a 66-year-old grandmother, who has decided to enter the fray again. She was the leader of the Independent Party for Salobreña, Lobres, La Caleta and La Guardia.

With nine parties vying for the top chair, the coming elections will be far from predictable.

(Editorial/Opinion: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: Radio Salobreña)