The election went off fairly smoothly from our point of view, but the Brit councillor (in opposition) for the past 4 years was crapped on from many directions and has gone from sight.
The way it works down here is that you vote for a party and each party has a 6" x 2.5" paper slip with all the names of their proposed councillors - all these papers neatly arranged on a table with envelopes. You go in and show I/d which gets checked against the voters register - seemingly by ALL the people in there, as they are all worried about fraud and want to check it for themselves. You then go to the table and pick your slip, put it in the envelope, take it back to the collection box at the table and are allowed to post it - and get your I/d card back in return.
The councillors are chosen by the total number of votes cast with "seats" (names in order from the list) awarded for the increments (in Mijas case of about 1000 per seat).
For some reason, our expat councillor was put / moved down a few lines from last time to number 13 on the PP list, which meant he would only get in if they got 13000 votes - 13 seats also meaning they would have a simple majority - something which doesn't seem to have happened in living memory.
The order of names on the sheet seems to be decided at regional level, so he was shafted by his local party and the regional "management" - and I am yet to be convinced that the region hadn't parachuted in some "carpet-baggers" above him.
Anyway, things went as normal with a hung council with no one party having a majority.
So let the horse-trading begin.
The decisions were made in the region behind locked doors and took nearly two weeks to come to a conclusion.
The final result was that the previous government and mayor are back in, but only as they are supported by 3 councillors from a smaller party and a previous councillor who seems to have floated around the parties until this time coming in a a new party named "Por mi Pueblo" (for my village). So a tin-pot jerrymanderer has the final say on the ruling party.
Apparently the PP were offered a solution with the same "floaters", but only on the condition that the ditched their party leader from being Mayor - something they cut off their noses and refused to do (only for him to step down from politics altogether after the event!!).
Our Brit councillor was thus out - and bitterly disappointed that the expat turn-out was down around the 10% level after all his efforts - (but an equal turnout to the spanish voters would not actually have made any difference as far as I can see).
Now we can wait and see what the next level of horse-trading brings in terms of strange ways of spending our money (mainly to attract more tourists of course).
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the party-hopping councillor from "Por Mi Pueblo" doesn't live in Mijas Pueblo - he lives in Fuengirola!
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