PSOE and Más Madrid of Alcobendas held a minute of silence for Maricarmen Abascal without the presence of Mayor Rocío García Alcántara or any member of the PP government team. The opposition criticises the absence of the council.
Representatives of PSOE and Más Madrid of Alcobendas gathered this Thursday at 12:00 hours on the steps of the Town Hall, in Plaza Mayor, to observe a minute of silence in memory of Maricarmen Abascal. Some local residents joined the call, but neither the mayor, Rocío García Alcántara, nor any member of the PP government team attended. This information was reported by lamoraleja.com.
The event was in response to a formal request submitted early in the morning by the municipal groups of PSOE and Más Madrid, in which they asked the Town Hall to institutionally call for a minute of silence for Maricarmen. Both parties warned that if the municipal government did not respond, they would hold the gathering anyway. And so it happened.
We regret that the PP mayor did not want to join this tribute
The PSOE spokesperson in Alcobendas, Ángel Sanguino, posted his thoughts on social media platform X after the event, stating that only his party, Más Madrid, and some residents were present.
Maricarmen Abascal passed away on Wednesday afternoon at the age of 87, two weeks after being evicted from her home in the Retiro neighbourhood of Madrid, where she had lived for over five decades. She was expelled on September 23 during a police operation involving around twenty officers. After the eviction, her health deteriorated, and she had to be hospitalised. She died without being able to return to her home. Her case gave its name to the housing decree approved by the Government, which was later rejected by Congress.
The position of the PP in Alcobendas followed the same line as that of their party in other Madrid institutions. In the Assembly of Madrid, President Enrique Ossorio ruled that without the consensus of the four spokespersons, the minute of silence could not be included in the agenda. In the Madrid Town Hall, Mayor Almeida rejected an institutional tribute and accused PSOE and Más Madrid of exploiting Maricarmen's figure. In the Senate, President Pedro Rollán also denied it.
The implicit argument for not participating was the same in all cases: it is not appropriate to call institutional minutes of silence for every death that acquires political relevance. The local opposition rejects this argument and maintains that Maricarmen's case was not an ordinary death, but that of a woman who died as a direct consequence of an eviction.
The same event was also held in San Sebastián de los Reyes, where Más Madrid, PSOE, and Izquierda Independiente submitted an identical request to the popular mayor Lucía Soledad Fernández. In Sanse, as in Alcobendas, the minute of silence was called by the opposition on their own, regardless of the municipal government's response.
With the general elections scheduled for November 29, Maricarmen's case has become one of the focal points of the housing debate in the campaign, and the refusal of municipal governments to participate in the minutes of silence is an argument that the opposition will use.
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