Group photo of the candidacy for mayor of the capital Recupera Madrid at the Edificio España on January 30, 2023 in Madrid (Spain) Alberto Ortega (Europa Press)
Recupera Madrid announce its attack on the Cibeles Palace. Luis Cueto and José Manuel Calvo, current councilors of the mixed faction in the city council and part of the Más Madrid list in the 2019 Manuela Carmena elections, presented themselves this Monday evening in the Torre España building in the capital – converted into a four-star hotel of the Riu company― his new political project: Recupera Madrid. From the 26th floor and overlooking the new Plaza de España – the last major work in the capital that Calvo himself began as mayor for urban planning during Carmena’s tenure – both city councilors launched their civic candidacies “under the guidance of experts all subjects” and not presented by politicians. Mayoral candidate will be Cueto himself.
Cueto, a 63-year-old from Madrid, was a city council representative in Ifema, Club de Campo or Madrid Destino during the tenure of Carmena, whose nephew-in-law he is. “The Hotel Plaza de España is very symbolic of our management,” Cueto explained to the nearly hundred attendees seated in the hotel room. “We endure all the burdens that we are exposed to. The proof is that the Riu Hotel works. We love this space.” If this civic platform is conducted, it would be the first time such a formation enters the Cibeles Palace. Yes, the law requires a minimum of 8,000 signatures, with the condition that they be signed 30 days before the parties’ registration deadline for the To collect elections 2023. Cueto and Calvo believe that they have the opportunity to collect them, for this purpose they have presented this Monday the rest of the citizens who will form their list and even the council that they will lead if they rule.
For example, the health sector would be headed by Lydia Pradera Andrés, a doctor by profession; the university teacher María Dolores Curto would lead the educational portfolio; or the architect Raquel del Río, the Department of Heat, among other names and personalities.
The birth of Recupera Madrid
The four councilors who were part of the mixed group were given the Carmenistas label from the start. Marta Higueras is a close friend of Manuela Carmena and was Deputy Mayor of the capital during her tenure; Cueto is the former mayor’s nephew-in-law and was her general coordinator of the mayor’s office; Felipe Llamas, who resigned in December, was his chief of staff at the Palacio de Cibeles; and José Manuel Calvo, head of urbanism, one of the city council’s strongest departments. “From day one,” writes Carmena in the foreword to the book “Manual de gobierno progresista,” which Calvo himself published a few months ago, “he was an indispensable collaborator in introducing a new way of understanding the city.”
After losing the mayoralty, Carmena confirmed her departure and Más Madrid was split into two speakers. A fact that proves the two currents of the party. Marta Higueras stayed on as institutional spokeswoman and Rita Maestre – who was government spokesman with Carmena – at the microphone in front of the media. Higueras and Maestre were the two visible pillars of the formation until May 2020. Then the party began its first organizational process. Higueras and the three council members who resigned in March declined to appear at this internal reorganization. “I’m more comfortable with the notion that there are other, more flexible forms with organizations other than political parties,” Higueras argued at the time. Maestre, however, assembled the majority of the councilors on his list. More Madrid set aside Carmena’s vision and became, yes, a political party like the others.
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On March 31st, 2021 Recupera Madrid was born, a platform created after the split of the Mixed Group. Only two are keeping the flame of the joint performance alive in 2023: Cueto and Calvo. Higueras is trying to find a place in the left formations, although, as revealed by socialist candidate for Madrid mayor Reyes Maroto, she doesn’t have her on her list either.
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