There will be one familiar face fewer in the next Almuñécar Municipal Election because Juan Carlos Benavides Yaguas is stepping down as party leader.

This was announced at a party meeting of the Convergencia Andaluza on Wednesday night, handing the party over to the new leader, 48-year-old Luisi Díaz, who is a pharmaceutist by trade and hitherto Party Spokeswoman.

Benny, as many in the foreign community refer to him as, has been a prominent figure in Almuñécar politics since the first democratic elections following the end of the Franco regime. He has been Mayor of Almuñécar more than anybody since then and is responsible for the present day layout of Almuñécar, fruit of the 1987 PGOU.

He started as a PSOE councillor under the first democratically elected Mayor, Miguel Ávila, but changed to the PA as a party big gun along the Costa Tropical before starting his own party, the Convergencia Andaluza de Almuñécar y La Herradura.

Now, it’s not clear if he is retiring from politics altogether but certainly as the party leader. He has also battled with cancer recently, which is probably another factor in his decision apart from age – Benny has to be in his early 70’s now and is a doctor by profession.

Almuñécar politics was dominated by this man, so much so that in the last 15 years, it has not been about political parties but about keeping him out of the mayoralty by a coalition of strange bedfellows – the far-left party has consistently voted in favour of putting a conservative mayor in that office.

Editorial comment: I can almost count Benny as a friend, whom he greets with “Hello my teacher!” as I gave him and his wife English classes back in the 80’s, as well as being hired to give classes to the Town Hall staff.

He hired me as interpreter to accompany the Almuñécar Tourism Stand transported by lorry to London for the World Travel Fair in Olympia in the late 80s. Back when our band was starting out, he pulled strings with Sevillana (now Endesa) to get sufficient electricity for our gig in 1988 on the cleared site where the old Hotel Mediterraneo had stood.

Benny, as Mayor, did a lot of good things and a lot of bad things; you didn’t want to be his enemy, but he was a generous friend. What a dull place Almuñécar would have been without him.

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

Keywords: Benavides Stands Down, Convergencia Andaluza, PSOE, PA, World Travel Fair