After 16 years, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won the municipal elections in Mijas on 28M. Just a few days later, Josele González (PSOE) sat again in the mayor’s office on June 17th, being the only Mijas mayor to repeat consecutively since 2007. He did so, moreover, with numerous projects initiated in the last mandate to which he wants to give continuity and with new initiatives that benefit the people of Mijas.

Mijas Weekly. How have the first few weeks back in office been?

Josele González. There were many issues that had to be interrupted or slowed down before the municipal elections. Now we have been able to resume them and continue with the same work. This is different from the previous term of office because you arrive new to a responsibility such as the mayor’s office and you first have to make contact, see what issues you want to change... Now, as this work was done four years ago, we have been able to give continuity to everything that was started and from the first day we have been at full capacity and, furthermore, with the wisdom and experience of four years of government.

M.W. What did you think on the night of 28M, when you saw that your party, the PSOE, had won the municipal elections, but with a minority, and that it was necessary to negotiate and reach an agreement?

J.G. First of all, looking at the context of the province and the Costa del Sol, I felt very responsible and proud to have won the elections after 16 years since the Socialist Party had won a municipal election in Mijas. I felt, to be honest, very happy. That is what I also wanted to convey to my colleagues on that election night. But it is true that there was still a bit of a bittersweet taste. Any politician wants to obtain an absolute majority so as not to be dependent on anyone. But it is true that, having won the elections, we were more than entitled to reach a government pact, as we did. Now it is time to work and respond to the demands and concerns of the residents of Mijas. To do so, moreover, with the experience that this government team has, where practically all of its councillors have at some point held a municipal responsibility and that means that they are tremendously prepared to take on the challenge of governing the municipality for the next four years.

M.W. In the previous term of office, the municipality of Mijas was managed by two partners in government. Now, in the current mandate, we are extending it to three. Are you confident that you will reach an understanding?

J.G. Absolutely. I believe that we have demonstrated over the last four years that we are capable of reaching government agreements and fulfilling them from start to finish. That is the same resolution that is going to define my intention over the next four years. I believe in agreements and consensus. I am willing to compromise when it is necessary and to stand firm in my convictions when I have a clear idea of what needs to be done. With this flexibility, I believe we will be able to ensure that this government pact, which guarantees stability and a sufficient majority to govern the municipality for the next four years, will reach its conclusion in May 2027.

M.W. So there has to be understanding then?

J.G. It is fundamental. Understanding, trust, dialogue, communication. This is like in a couple’s relationship: if communication does not work, if there is no dialogue, mistrust begins to be generated between these partners in government. That is why it is important for there to be this flow of communication and, above all, for there to be transparency and teamwork so that the projects we have pending, which are many, can come to light and we can finish them in these four years.

M.W. This mandate has begun with a new distribution of delegations and internal restructuring in nine major areas...

J.G. Yes, we wanted to make some changes that perhaps we did not dare to do four years ago. We wanted to create a much more compact municipal organisation, where the delegations that we had been lugging around, since the structure created by Ángel Nozal in 2011, were not so widely distributed, and which has weighed us down over the last four years. Now it is much more compact, where the councillors are far more clearly defined in the departments that report directly to them. We have even changed some of the names of these areas, we have created new ones; in other words, we have updated the municipal organisation chart to the reality of Mijas today: a city with 93,000 inhabitants that will continue to grow and that needs a structure in large areas, like the city of Málaga, like the city of Marbella and other large cities in Andalusia. This is precisely what we have been looking for.

M.W. What does this mean for the public or for day-to-day management?

J.G. It will be much easier for the citizen to identify who the councillor responsible for that area is, and we have brought together departments that were connected internally so that the citizen does not have to work out why this department is in charge. What we want is for them to have a clear reference of who the councillor is. For example, in the area of Town Planning we had eight or nine delegations that depended directly on the council for Town Planning and this generated confusion among citizens. If we look at the structure from 2011 and from 2015 to 2019, it is nothing like the one we have just created now in 2023. Everything is much more clearly defined, for example, Libraries have been brought together within the area of Culture. We have made decisions that we understood to be totally logical and that aim to make the administration more agile, comfortable and understandable.

M.W. In the last mandate, the management was very much marked by the pandemic. Now, governance will be different...

J.G. I certainly won’t miss it. The pandemic has undoubtedly marked these four years of governance. The government team started new in July 2019, it should be remembered that the corporation took office later due to a complaint. When you start to get into the rhythm after Christmas of what it means to be mayor, to take on these responsibilities, the pandemic arrives and cuts it short. Being at home and the social, economic and employment problems arising from the health crisis, which had to be dealt with by the municipal administration, came to the fore. There is the OREA Plan, all the social aid that we set up in the previous term of office, which was a municipal benchmark. The last year is the one in which we have had a full year of pseudo-normality. So what we hope now is that in these four years we will have peace of mind in these aspects and we can focus on completing all the projects we have pending, which are numerous and absolutely essential for the future of the municipality.

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