The Madrid College of Architects (COAM) took another step this Tuesday to try to resolve the crisis the institution has been suffering since the elections held in May 2025, in which Sigfrido Herráez was re-elected as dean for the third time, despite the controversy over the validity of his candidacy. After several legal appeals filed by that board that have been closing in the courts, Herráez has decided to initiate “the necessary procedures for the call of new elections” and “to protect COAM against any attempt to alter its governing bodies without the required legal and institutional guarantees.”
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The decision has not been well received by Herráez’s main opponent, Jesús San Vicente, who has maintained a power struggle with the governing board currently occupying the COAM offices and has considered that the announcement of new elections “violates the most basic democratic rules governing COAM’s electoral processes.” “All, absolutely all judicial and collegiate rulings have gone against both the claims of Todos COAM [Herráez’s candidacy] to take office illicitly, to remain indefinitely as a ‘caretaker’ Governing Board and, ultimately, to prevent the taking of office of Nexo COAM,” the latter explained in a statement released after learning the news and signed by San Vicente as dean, since the Electoral Board declared him the winner of the elections last July, although he has not managed to gain effective control of the college.
For Herráez, “the institution is always above individuals and any candidacy,” as stated in Tuesday’s statement. “The absolute priority is to return the focus of the conversation to the true protagonists of the institution: the members. Any solution to this situation must be based on strengthening the voice of the membership and ensuring that the future of the College responds solely to the will and interest of the entire profession,” he added.
After the appeals closed in the courts, even due to duplication in the case, the board has made a decision they had previously hinted at as a possibility. Herráez stated in the past that if new elections were called, he would not run again as a candidate. Initially, even if he wanted to, this possibility is barred because the college statutes establish that only two consecutive terms can be served.
Herráez is currently serving his third term, in fact, although the first was not three years as established because he entered after the resignation of the previous dean. Whether he could run or not is the root cause of the conflict the college suffers, which led to his candidacy being denied by the Electoral Board. However, so far no judge has addressed the substance of the matter to clarify it, which causes almost any move that occurs in COAM to be questioned by one side or the other.
The new electoral call “would ensure an orderly transition with full legal guarantees,” COAM states, “without having to wait for pending judicial decisions to be issued” by the courts, that is, whether Herráez could run or not.
Two governing boards disputing power
Sigfrido Herráez was able to run in the 2025 elections thanks to very precautionary measures issued by the court where he filed a first appeal against the invalidation of his candidacy. He managed to win with 54% of the votes against San Vicente, who came in second. From the beginning, the Electoral Board, the body responsible for overseeing the process, refused to proclaim Herráez and his running mates as winners, which prevented the dean from assuming the position in a swearing-in ceremony as established by the statutes, but did not prevent him from effectively exercising power almost normally for more than a year.
The crisis, however, worsened last June with the arrival of a judge’s order stating that Herráez should first have waited for the Electoral Board to respond to the appeal he filed against the invalidation of his candidacy before filing another through the judicial route. It was a response that apparently returned authority over the process to that Board, which decided to proclaim San Vicente the winner amid complaints from Herráez’s governing board, which claimed that in any case new elections should be called.
After several judicial back-and-forths, on July 20, in the exhibition hall on the ground floor of the COAM headquarters because security personnel did not allow attendees to access the main floor by order of the governing board, San Vicente was proclaimed new dean of the college by the Board. There a “parallel” governing board was formed, with Jesús San Vicente as dean and Marina del Mármol Peces as vice dean, as well as a secretary, a treasurer, and five board members. Herráez’s governing board stated that this act “lacked legal effect.”
San Vicente says, following the electoral call, that “now that all winds blow against them [Herráez and his team], they are entrenched in the Dean’s office without accepting the new dean’s taking office.” “If you win a contest and do not meet the conditions of the Terms of Reference, the contest is awarded to the second who did meet them,” he adds as an example, although in reality this atypical situation that COAM is experiencing is not covered in the statutes.
Herráez, for his part, points out that “currently COAM maintains stable, effective, and institutionally recognized governance, as well as the full continuity of its activity and services” and that his intention is to end the dilemma once and for all “avoiding irreversible consequences and putting an end to a situation that has harmed the College.” The elections, he assures, will be held “as soon as possible.”