The new party was presented at Manilva Green, accompanied by the mayors of La Línea and Los Barrios, and puts forward a localist project with the aim of governing the municipality.
Manilva has had a new political party since Thursday. Manilva 100×100 held its official presentation at the Apartamentos Manilva Green complex, where the current first deputy mayor and councillor for Urban Planning, Finance, Health and Consumer Affairs, Juan Carlos Morejón, launched a project that describes itself as a municipalist, independent alternative focused exclusively on the interests of the municipality.
The event brought together dozens of attendees and marked Manilva’s incorporation into the 100% Unido movement, a network of localist parties born in the province of Cádiz that already governs in municipalities such as La Línea de la Concepción and Los Barrios.
A launch backed by leading figures of municipalism
The presentation was attended by the mayor of La Línea de la Concepción, Juan Franco; the mayor of Los Barrios, Miguel Alconchel; the vice-president of the Cádiz Provincial Council and president of 100% Unido, Javier Vidal; the vice-president of the Campo de Gibraltar Association of Municipalities, Maite García; as well as representatives from San Roque and Algeciras.
In his speech, Juan Franco recalled the origins of the project, which began in La Línea in 2015, and explained that the aim has always been to strengthen the weight of municipalities in supra-municipal institutions.
«We started because we felt we were the last corner of the province and that investment ended up going wherever there was more political weight.»
The mayor of La Línea noted that the movement currently has a presence in ten municipal councils in the province of Cádiz, four mayoralties and representation on the Provincial Council.
«We want Manilva to have its own voice»
The main speech of the presentation was given by Juan Carlos Morejón, who described the birth of Manilva 100×100 as a response to what he considers the municipality’s lack of institutional weight.
«We want Manilva to have weight, we want Manilva to have a voice and, above all, we want the resources and taxes we pay to translate into services, infrastructure and opportunities for our residents.»
In his speech he listed several issues which, he said, reflect long-standing needs of the municipality, such as the situation of the Sabinillas health centre, the lack of a second secondary school, transport links and certain pending investments.
He went on to argue that the new party was born with a single priority: «Manilva and its residents.»
The La Línea mirror
One of the messages repeated most often during the event was the intention to replicate in Manilva the model developed by La Línea 100%.
Morejón explained that he has been working on this idea for around a year after holding talks with Juan Franco, and said he sees that example as a reference for strengthening the municipality’s negotiating capacity. «The seed we want to plant here in Manilva today is to look to the mirror of La Línea.»
He explained that the aim is for an exclusively local party to be able to have influence in bodies such as the Provincial Council or the Association of Municipalities without depending, in his words, on the provincial or national leadership of other political parties.
The background to the split with Izquierda Unida
Agustín Vargas also spoke at the presentation, reviewing the experience of the group of councillors who stood in the 2023 municipal elections under the Izquierda Unida banner.
Vargas recalled that the local assembly backed the governing pact with the Partido Popular at the time, while the provincial leadership took a different position, a situation that later led to the councillors’ expulsion and a prolonged internal conflict; «We answer to the assembly and to the residents of Manilva.»
That political journey has now led to the creation of Manilva 100×100 as a project of its own for the future.
Review of the municipal government’s record
A significant part of Morejón’s speech was devoted to defending the work carried out during the current term by the departments he currently heads.
On the economic side, he said that since he took over Finance, the Town Hall has reduced by three million euros a long-standing debt which, he explained, initially stood at 17.5 million euros, linked in part to obligations outstanding from previous decades.
In Urban Planning, he said the team is working both on long-standing problems relating to land swaps and on new public housing projects for rent, an initiative he described as unprecedented for the municipality.
Regarding the cleaning service, he acknowledged that there is a problem with the current contract and announced that the Town Hall plans to impose more than 100,000 euros in penalties on the contractor for failures in the service, a decision that, he said, will be taken to upcoming council meetings.
«It’s not about acronyms»
The presentation ended with a call for residents to get involved and a message that Morejón wanted to make the central idea of the new project; «This is not about acronyms, it’s not about one person, it’s not about a post. It’s about a municipality, it’s about Manilva.»
With this event, Manilva 100×100 officially begins its political journey and enters the municipal scene ahead of the 2027 elections, intending to present itself as a localist alternative backed by the experience of the 100% Unido movement in various municipalities of the Campo de Gibraltar.
https://youtu.be/MYWzA_WfUsg
