The electoral race to win the mayoralty of the city of Madrid in May 2027 officially began today with the opening of the political course by Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida. “Madrid is doing well, but Madrid and Madrilenians will do better,” the mayor assured this morning in front of the media after the municipal government meeting, convinced that he has four more years secured at the head of the municipal government if the opposition continues with an electoral program focused on the penthouse that the Community of Madrid bought last April for 6.3 million euros. “If they really believe that with this matter they can run in the elections, if they can have any chance, the only thing I can say is that they continue with this matter,” he launched.
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The matter ―the property that the regional government bought for supposed office use, as this newspaper revealed, and which was later discarded― occupies the attention of the Popular Party due to the serious institutional crisis it has caused. “The left is so desperate, knowing that the issue has no more to give, after a month of stretching this gum, that it has to resort to conspiracies within the Popular Party,” the mayor responded about an alleged leak of the penthouse scandal by the PP itself to end the Madrid president. “The issue is already known, what it consisted of, and that there is no patrimonial damage to the Community of Madrid,” he insisted.
Almeida, who had already told the left in mid-August that “if all they have is the penthouse, Ayuso has a long way to go,” wanted to close the crisis by assuring that the Community of Madrid has offered “all the appropriate explanations.” “I would like the Government of Spain to have given all the explanations with the same intensity as those given by the Community of Madrid regarding so many cases that plague it,” he concluded.
All attention, according to the mayor, should be focused on the “very Spanish” city of Ceuta and all its citizens who have been subjected for a month to the “invasion” of migrants coming from Moroccan soil. The mayor called on all Madrilenians to attend the Plaza de Cibeles this Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. to support a solidarity demonstration with the people of Ceuta and demand responsibilities and solutions from the central government.
According to the mayor, Pedro Sánchez is launching “trial balloons” by blaming “Russia, Israel, the global far right, Elon Musk, the networks” and now also trying with Felipe VI, who will visit the autonomous city soon, as revealed by the president in an interview on Cadena SER this Monday. “There is one thing about Pedro Sánchez that will never cease to surprise me: the total and absolute lack of empathy, the emotional incapacity to put himself in the shoes of those who live it,” Almeida said, who also criticized Sánchez for being on vacation with the crisis in Ceuta at its peak.
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Madrid has entered the political course precisely on the day the Arab House’s deadline to vacate the Escuelas Aguirre expires, following the Madrid City Council’s decision to recover the building due to its poor state of conservation. “There is an illegal occupation of Casa Árabe by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he stated. The ministry, according to Almeida, refuses to convene the Governing Council, which must formalize the Community of Madrid’s exit from the institution and the eviction of the building. Foreign Affairs, in turn, assures that there is dialogue with the Madrid city council and denies that there is “an occupation” of the building “as the mayor insidiously claims.”
The city council points out that it has detected “maintenance problems that have led to structural problems and damage” in the building, so it requires an intervention that will be carried out as soon as it is vacated. “I call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly responsible for any accident that may affect the physical integrity of people, as it is playing with the safety of people, the safety of workers, and the safety of visitors to Casa Árabe,” Almeida warned, before mentioning that his government is studying “the appropriate legal actions” to end this situation.
The mayor begins the last course of his second term with other controversies looming in the capital, such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix that will be held in the city from September 11 to 13 and the neighborhood complaints it has sparked due to noise and mobility problems it will cause. “We obviously understand the complaints that neighbors may have and we convey to them that we are adopting, together with Ifema, all the appropriate measures to minimize those inconveniences,” he clarified. “The president of Ifema [José Vicente de los Mozos] said in an interview today that zero inconvenience does not exist, but that does not mean it is not our obligation to take all measures to minimize or reduce the inconveniences they are applying regarding Formula 1,” he added.
There is also the recent reclassification of 448,000 square meters of Real Madrid’s sports city for the construction of offices, student residences, a private hospital, and a hotel, an operation that will cost the developers 1.235 billion euros and is expected to bring substantial profits to Florentino Pérez’s club. Almeida has assured that “he does not understand the surprise,” when this project was already announced together with the Community of Madrid last year. “What seems reasonable is that those lands can have a use that is productive, not only for Real Madrid but also for the city,” he clarified. Those profits, he said, have two points of view: on one hand, all the land that the city council will obtain for public use, such as green areas needed by the Valdebebas neighbors, and on the other, the new economic activities that will be established in the area, which will help create jobs.
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