Manilva Town Hall approved by decree the final list of admitted candidates and summoned them to defend their projects at the Mayor’s Office at 8:30 on Thursday 23 July. The announcement, signed the previous day, does not record any excluded candidate.
Manilva Town Hall is continuing with the process to appoint the head of the Local Police. By means of Mayoral Decree 2026-1335, the Town Hall approved the final list of admitted and excluded candidates in the call, within file 4414/2026, and summoned the candidates to defend their projects.
The announcement, signed by the mayor, Mario Jiménez Rodríguez, and published on the municipal electronic office, lists two admitted candidates, identified only by their DNI number, and no exclusions. The summons set the defence of the projects for 8:30 on 23 July at the Mayor’s Office, in the municipal headquarters at calle Mar, 34. According to the date shown in the document’s electronic signature, the announcement was signed on 22 July, a few hours before the summons for the two candidates.
How the procedure works
The post of head is filled by the system of free appointment (libre designación), a formula that gives the Mayor’s Office the power to choose the candidate it considers most suitable from among those who meet the requirements. The call is reserved for serving Local Police officers in Manilva.
Candidates must submit, among other documentation, a project for improving the force, which is assessed together with professional experience and a personal interview. The defence of the project before the Mayor’s Office is precisely the step to which the two admitted candidates have been summoned. The final decision also rests with the mayor, who in Manilva also holds the Public Safety department.
The rules of the procedure set out the principles of merit, ability, equality and publicity that govern access to the civil service.
From one candidate to two: the annulled precedent
This is not the first attempt to fill the post. On 19 March the Town Hall opened an internal, urgent call, with a period of three working days to submit applications, justified by the then imminent retirement of the head of the force, Mateo Collado.
That process ended with a single admitted candidate and another excluded for failing to meet one of the requirements of the rules, according to the provisional list approved by decree on 26 March, which opened a period of one working day for objections.
On 30 April, however, the Mayor’s Office partially upheld the objections lodged against the call and declared the procedure null and void, taking the proceedings back to the point before the approval of the rules, which had to be redrafted in accordance with the law. The Town Hall thus acknowledged defects in the process. The process was reopened with new rules last June, and it is the one that has now reached the project defence stage.
One detail that marked the annulled call from the outset, and which we reported in this outlet: the Town Hall had publicly announced in early March, at an event with the mayor and the outgoing head, who the new head of the force would be, more than two weeks before the rules of the selection procedure were published.
A rotating headship
The post has changed hands quickly in recent months. On 8 January the Town Hall held the retirement ceremony for Juan Montero, after more than 36 years of service, and formalised the appointment of Mateo Collado at the same event. Barely two months later, the Town Hall announced a new handover owing to the upcoming retirement of the latter, the same circumstance that was cited in March to process the call by the urgent route.
Several open fronts
The appointment of the head of the force is not the only pending matter concerning the Local Police in Manilva. In parallel, the selection processes called to fill officer posts, three in a first call and four in a second, have accumulated several challenges and a number of complaints.
According to OKDIARIO on 17 July, the procedures total eleven challenges, two complaints to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, one complaint to the Andalusian Ombudsman and one claim for financial liability. The Partido Popular group has formally requested the precautionary suspension of both competitive exams until the claims are resolved and has requested access to the documentation. Several candidates have asked for the process to be halted or for a new selection panel to be appointed. The panel itself, for its part, announced in a statement its intention to refer to the Public Prosecutor’s Office the statements made by the PP and some candidates, on the grounds that certain accusations affect the honour of its members.
All the actions are at the complaint or claim stage and none has been resolved, so the presumption of innocence applies to the people affected.
For the time being, we do not know the expected timescale for the final decision on the headship following the presentation of the projects by the two candidates for the post.po
