Badalona mayor to run in 2023 election despite Pandora Papers ousting

Xavier Garcia Albiol considers the motion of no confidence against him ‘tremendously unfair’

Badalona mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol photographed at a press conference (by Jordi Pujolar)
Badalona mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol photographed at a press conference (by Jordi Pujolar) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

October 22, 2021 05:13 PM

The soon-to-be-ousted mayor of Badalona, ​​Xavier Garcia Albiol, considers the motion of no confidence in him already agreed among opposition parties "tremendously unfair." 

His fellow councillors have today registered the vote to formally take place on 8 November, where the Socialists’ Rubén Guijarro will be named the fourth mayor of Badalona since 2018.

The leaked Pandora Paper documents, which show the offshore deals and financial arrangements of current and former world leaders, unveiled links between the Badalona mayor and a company based in Belize, a tax haven in Central America, which also operated from Andorra. 

Visibly upset by his removal from the post, Albiol said the no-confidence motion is based on "hatred and resentment" from parties like the Socialists and Guanyem. He also criticized their "political incapacity and impotence." 

With this in mind, Albiol warned that his Badalona mayorship rivals will not get rid of him, as he confirmed he would run for the local council position again in the next election in 2023. 

At the “most difficult” press conference of his political career, Albiol said that in what he was going through "very hard times in the familial, personal, and political spheres," but would run for office again in the upcoming election regardless.  

The People’s Party politician avoided the controversy of his links with a company in Belize and restricted himself into only saying that the powers he had were "legal."

In fact, Albiol says that the motion of no confidence against him is not motivated by the Pandora Papers revelations, as he recalled that opposition parties tried to “remove" him from power after the elections in 2015 and 2019, when this controversy was not yet known.

"Badalona has many virtues, but it has a big problem,” Albiol said. “Its great tragedy is the disconnection of the opposition parties with the locals," he said, before adding that his conservative party won more votes in every election going back to 2011.