A Learning Process

This will be my last article as a serving councillor in Mijas. I shall continue to make my weekly contribution. It looks as if ex Mayor, Juan Carlos Maldonado, has finally decided to throw his casting vote in with the two parties he has already left: PSOE and Ciudadanos.  How am I feeling about it all? People have been very kind and some have said that I should be furious at all sorts of people. I’m not.

Life continuously takes strange turns and  rarely fails to surprise us. If we can’t learn to roll with the punches, we shouldn’t get into the ring. At a time like this we can of course just go into a huff, blame people, or we can take time to reflect. I decided on the last one.  What have I learned from the last 4 years?

Firstly, that politics is as bad as I thought it was which is why I never sought to enter through its rusty doors. I worked for many years with politicians, local and national, in Scotland. I have seen the dodgy dealings, the economy with the truth. I have seen the inability of politicians to ever admit they got it wrong, even when by that very admission their credibility rises in my eyes. No, they want to portray righteous perfection even when they clearly aren’t.

I have got to know a lot of good people, mainly foreigners who have made Mijas their home. I have intervened on behalf of hundreds over the years: sometimes successfully, and sometimes not. I have learned that despite all the nice words, the compliments about my work, and how valuable I have been to the International Community, you simply can’t rely on payback when it comes to the elections. These things were never done on my part on a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” basis. But I was shocked at how many foreigners didn’t  register to vote. Clearly, I wasn’t that indispensible.

I have seen the apathy with which problems are addressed. A Danish couple who have been waiting for 8 years to get a licence to complete a half finished (fully legal) house they bought. Or the British couple who have a listed monument in their garden and have been waiting for almost 2 years to get boundaries sorted out and to have building work done on their terrace. Or the British ladies who can’t get a finishing certificate for their fully legal build until they have a pavement built in the turning circle outside their property: one small stretch of pavement in the whole circle which will do nothing other than cause an obstruction for cars turning in the cul de sac. These get passed from councillor to civil servant and to another civil servant, and the chaos remains intact.

I have seen the smelly underbelly of local politics: the vote buying (with our money), the bare faced lies disguised as half truths, the smear campaigns and the arrogance of those in power. I have seen the lack of any type of strategic thinking, let alone planning, the extortionate vanity projects while the basic needs of communities remain unmet.

Am I sad to be going, leaving this all behind? In some ways, yes, but overall, no I’m not.