Almeida: “Almudena Grandes does not deserve to be Madrid’s Favorite Daughter, but to get the Budgets you have to make assignments”

“The problem is a left that needs Almudena Grandes to be declared Favorite Daughter to approve some Budgets. I do not think that Almudena Grandes should be part of a budget agreement,” the councilor explained in the interview, just before making it clear that he, “of his own accord”, would not have done it.

“It is necessary to make balance and weight. If I can lower taxes and that Almudena Grandes is a favorite daughter, I think that the people of Madrid prefer that taxes be lowered,” he continued. “Does the character deserve it? I think not, but to get the Budgets you have to make assignments,” he has settled.

Almeida has expressed himself in this way in the interview after agreeing last week on the public accounts of the city with the councilors of Recupera Madrid, the splinter group of Más Madrid. The mayor agreed on the Budgets with this group after the negotiations with Vox, the mayor’s preferred partner, failed.

Thus, the PP had to modify its initial position regarding Almudena Grandes, whom at first it refused to name Favorite Daughter, something in which it has yielded in exchange for the support of Recover Madrid to the accounts.

Shortly after the interview was published, Luis García Montero has censored Almeida’s statements. “I read petty statements from the mayor about Almudena Grandes. He should treat us Madrilenians with more dignity,” García Montero, the widower of the writer, has written on Twitter.

“If he feels traitor to his friends on the extreme right, there he. Thanks to Madrid and the City Council for naming Almudena Favorite Daughter”, added the poet and director of the Instituto Cervantes.

The mayor’s words have also generated the rejection of several opposition leaders in the Town Hall. The municipal spokeswoman for Más Madrid, Rita Maestre, has written a reproachful tweet: “How big is Madrid for Almeida”.

Socialist councilor Mar Espinar has also criticized the mayor’s words. “Now he plays a little message to satisfy his people. Perhaps the one who does not deserve to be mayor of Madrid is him. Unfortunately,” he wrote in a message on his social networks.

The president of Asturias, the socialist Adrián Barbón, has also entered the controversy, who has considered that in this debate “political sectarianism is unnecessary.” “There are those who call themselves Christians, but no, they are not,” he said.