A mayor handcuffed to the railings outside the Education Department in Malaga on Tuesday 24th caused quite a stir in the media, but even so, Juan Lorenzo Pineda, failed to achieve his objectives.

The Izquierda Unida mayor of Alameda had decided to remain chained up outside the building for ten hours, one for every year that the town has been without an employment workshop subsidised by the Junta de Andalucía. His aim was to persuade the provincial delegate for Education, Susana Radío, to show him the criteria used by the Department to determine the municipalities to be granted an employment workshop starting this year, and ultimately for Alameda to be given the workshop it applied for and was refused. For the time being neither of these demands would be met as the delegate informed the member of the Andalusian parliament for IU, José Antonio Castro. “I have chained myself up because public funds should be transparent and because I sense discrimination against Alameda”, explained the mayor, who was handcuffed to the railings between eight in the morning and six in the evening.

Pineda expressed his indignation at the fact that neighbouring towns Humilladero, Mollina and Fuente de Piedra had all been granted their own workshops while Alameda only has a share in another joint project with the three others. This was unfair, he argued, as his town has more inhabitants, more unemployed and has had fewer workshops that other towns whose applications had been accepted.

“Excessive” demands

The Employment delegate, who said she was willing to talk to Pineda, stated that she had given the mayor all kinds of explanations but that he insisted on receiving a complete breakdown, for each town, of the points system used to award the workshops, something she considered “somewhat excessive”.

She also said, in contrast to the mayor’s claims, that in January 2011 Alameda had completed a two year employment workshop that had cost 813,000 euros, that Humilladero and Fuente de Piedra had higher unemployment rates and that Mollina and Humilladero had been waiting longer to be awarded a project.