Vox wins the mayoralty of Pinilla del Valle with the unexpected support of the PSOE

Pinilla del Valle, located at the foot of a reservoir with the same name within the Sierra de Guadarrama (Madrid), has 200 registered inhabitants, although on Thursday afternoon only five decided the future of the municipality, dyeing it green.

It all started with a resignation. That of the mayor, from Ciudadanos, who left office in mid-August - along with his council record. And in Pinilla del Valle, as in many small municipalities, open lists govern: whoever loses a seat in the City Council automatically gives it up to the next candidate with the most votes at the polls, regardless of the party. In this case, that candidate was from Vox. So his spokesman, Luis Alfonso Ruiz, took office as councilor before the next point of the day began: electing a new councilor after the departure of Cs.

The plenary session, urgent and extraordinary, was made up of two socialist councilors; one from the PP; another from Citizens; and that of Vox. And three candidates were presented: María del Mar Tejedor (PSOE), Alberto Miranda (PP) and Luis Alfonso Ruiz himself. The table, chaired by the PSOE, decided that the vote would be secret and not by show of hands. But it didn't matter, because the scrutiny left no room for error. The PSOE got zero support. The PP, two. And, surprisingly, the newcomer from the Abascal party won the mayor of Pinilla del Valle thanks to three votes.

"I had a meeting with him the day before and he already smelled something. The whole time he talked about 'when I am mayor...'. It was so clear to me that I imagined that he had agreed on the votes of the PSOE, there was no other possibility," Alberto Miranda, popular spokesperson in the municipality, tells this newspaper. And he continues: "Ideologically they have nothing to do with each other. They are personal pacts, not political ones. They don't care about the people or their voters. Most people don't believe it."

One of the extremes that most surprises Miranda is that one of the socialist councilors ran as a candidate to be councilor "and doesn't even vote for herself." "People are laughing. You show up to do a performance of I don't know what and then you don't vote... It's surreal," he adds.

Instead of agreeing with the PP itself or with Cs, they chose to throw themselves into the arms of the green party, which in conversation with this newspaper they valued: "We were not going to give in. In municipalism, the PSOE does not want to agree with anyone, but it does denote that someone does their job well, as in this case, discards the known bad and bets on the new." Likewise, they clarify that "the nicest thing is that there is no type of agreement. It has been free support. They have voted for the best option they had."

This is not the first confluence between PSOE and Vox in the Community of Madrid. Already in January 2024, a motion of censure was carried out in Los Santos de la Humosa, a town of 2,800 inhabitants very close to Alcalá de Henares, which managed to oust the councilor, from the Popular Party, thanks to an alliance between the PSOE and a non-attached councilor who had been a member of Vox.