One year before the next elections, Arona and Granadilla de Abona, the two municipalities with the largest population in the South, are emerging as the high-voltage squares for the main political formations in the region, in which a tough electoral battle is expected.
In the case of Arona, José Julián Mena will run for his third consecutive mayoralty after a convulsive mandate marked by the internal crisis of his government group, divided into two two years ago. It remains to be seen if the current mayor will be the head of the PSOE poster, as indicated by the majority of pools. As for Granadilla de Abona, the mayor, José Domingo Regalado (CC), will be seen again with Jennifer Miranda (PSOE), with whom he tied for councilors (8) in 2019, although the socialist obtained half a thousand votes plus.
In Arona, a municipality of 100,000 inhabitants, most of the parties that obtained representation in the City Council three years ago are not going through their best moment, although everyone is aware of the great strategic value that this square represents at a political and economic level. No one is unaware of the urban and tourist potential of the municipality or its political weight, due to its high population and because the votes of the aroneros can tip the balance in the Cabildo and influence the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
With a government group split in half and a mayor propped up in office by Justice after his own party tried to expel him after the dismissal of the mayor of Urbanism two years ago; with the main opposition party, Coalición Canaria, which no longer has any of the four councilors elected in 2019 (all have resigned), and with a Popular Party that, everything indicates, will present a candidate with no political experience from the world of the company, uncertainty hangs over Arona one year before the elections of May 28, 2023.
Granadilla de Abona, with more than 60,000 inhabitants, is another of the places listed in the South. Its mayor, José Domingo Regalado (CC), reached the Mayor’s Office via a motion of censure in 2016 and renewed the position in 2019 thanks to a pact with the Popular Party that is currently in place. Her main rival will be Jennifer Miranda, a young lawyer who has just received the unanimous support of the militants to lead the Socialist Group of Granadilla and who will not make it easy for them, as she demonstrated three years ago.
Granadilla is another very attractive municipality from a political point of view, given its economic potential and its high concentration of strategic infrastructures, including the airport, the port under construction, the largest industrial estate on the island and ITER.
In Adeje, it is assumed that José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga (PSOE) will seek 40 years as mayor (he currently has 35 after chaining nine terms in a row, eight of them with an absolute majority), while in Santiago del Teide, Emilio Navarro ( PP), with two majorities behind him, new challenges await him in 2023 after being proclaimed island president of the popular ones, although it is assumed that he will lead the municipal party to take advantage of his pull.
The first elections as the head of the bill for Josefa Mesa (PSOE) after Pedro Martín made the leap to the Presidency of the Cabildo, are also an incentive in Guía de Isora, which has been in socialist hands since 1995. Meanwhile, in San Miguel de Abona, interest will focus on whether the CC political project, led by Arturo González, will be able to maintain its hegemony after achieving an absolute majority in the last elections.
Other unknowns to be resolved will be whether the councilor of Arico, Sebastián Martín, at the head of Primero Arico, will retain the Mayor’s Office and how the fasnieros will react to the step aside of Damián Pérez (PSOE), who last March handed him the baton of command to Luis Javier Gonzalez.
The PSOE maintains a historic municipal hegemony in the South, although in recent years it has lost some steam. It currently has six mayors (Adeje, Arona, Guía de Isora, Vilaflor, Fasnia and Candelaria), two more than the Canarian Coalition (Granadilla, San Miguel, Güímar and Arafo).
For its part, the PP governs with an absolute majority in Santiago del Teide and Primero Arico does so, through an agreement with several parties, in the largest municipality in the South.
