The motion of censure that will dislodge the PSOE and BNG bipartite from power in Lugo is already a reality. The PP has presented the document after gathering the 13 required signatures, thanks to the support of María Reigosa, the councilwoman who left the PSOE and joined the group of non-attached members.
With this move, Elena Candia will be invested, barring an unexpected turn of events, as mayor of Lugo on May 7. While awaiting the details of the agreement, tension had soared in recent hours both in the City Council and in Galician politics, after several days of intense contacts in which it was taken for granted that the initiative would be registered this week.
The leadership of the PPdeG, with Alfonso Rueda --on an official trip to China-- and the party's number two, Paula Prado, in charge, has endorsed the operation, alleging that the popular party was the most voted list and has the "right" to govern.
On Wednesday morning, the national spokesperson for the BNG, Ana Pontón, traveled to Lugo to support the municipal government team. The nationalist leader directly blamed Rueda for allowing "this democratic outrage" and harshly criticized Elena Candia's attitude for her "unbridled lust for power, using the death of three councilors to take over the Mayor's office".
Also the spokesperson of the local executive, the socialist Ana González Abelleira, lashed out against "the usual PP", whom she accused of "buying a motion of no confidence", alluding to a position in Costas that, according to socialists and nationalists, would be intended for Reigosa.
End to 27 years of socialist governments in Lugo
The motion registered by the PP with the support of Reigosa will put an end, barring surprises, to 27 uninterrupted years of socialist governments —alone or in coalition with the BNG— in a city that exceeds 100,000 inhabitants. José López Orozco was elected mayor in 1999, when the PSOE, with the backing of the BNG, snatched the Mayor's office from the PP by a narrow margin.
Since then, the Mayor's Office has remained in socialist hands, although in several terms the support of the BNG was essential to ensure a majority in the plenary session.
From Orozco to Lara Méndez and recent instability
Orozco led the local government until 2015, when he was succeeded by Lara Méndez, who became the first woman at the head of the City Council. The socialist revalidated her position on two more occasions, but in the current term, which began in 2023, she barely completed a year in office before leaving municipal politics to join the candidacy for the Parliament of Galicia led by the leader of the PSdeG, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, a candidate for the Xunta (the socialists finished as the third force in the regional Chamber).
Her departure gave way to Paula Alvarellos, who died suddenly from a heart attack a year later, leaving the Mayor's office in the hands of Miguel Fernández after an internal dispute within the local PSOE.
The arrival of Reigosa and his break with the PSOE
After the death of Paula Alvarellos, the deaths of two other socialist councilors, Pablo Permuy and Olca López Racamonde, occurred. It was precisely Permuy's vacancy that allowed María Reigosa to enter the Corporation.
His time in local government was marked by clashes with his party colleagues. He took on the Department of Rural Affairs, a responsibility he abandoned months later, citing incompatibility with his position as a civil servant in the Coastal Authority.
After several public disagreements, she facilitated the approval of different PP initiatives in a plenary session, disregarding internal discipline and making her distancing from the PSOE evident. She ended up leaving the party and became a non-attached councilor. Although she allowed the last budgets to be passed, she voted with the PP on most matters, fueling rumors about a possible motion of no confidence.
In recent days, Reigosa herself hinted at the rapprochement with the PP by acknowledging the existence of conversations, although she qualified that she had not yet made a definitive decision.
Elena Candia, heading to the Mayoralty of Lugo
After several days of silence from both the local PP and the former socialist, the motion is already registered, which will convert, barring unforeseen events, Elena Candia into the new Lugo councilwoman.
The popular leader, a lawyer native of Mondoñedo, began her career in municipal politics in her locality in 2003. In 2015 she was briefly president of the Diputación de Lugo, after an internal conflict in the PSOE that led the mayor of Becerreá, Manuel Martínez, then a socialist, to vote for himself. PSOE and BNG recovered the institution a few months later through a motion of no confidence.
Later she assumed the provincial presidency of the PP —after winning an internal process against Raquel Arias—, moved to Lugo and ran as a candidate for Mayor in 2023. She achieved 12 councilors, falling just a few votes short of an absolute majority, set at 13, and outside the municipal government. Now, the motion of no confidence opens the door to the Mayor's office for her.