Podemos at Alcudia town hall can often be relied on to attempt to put the spanner in any works by raising motions that are contrary to proposals of the ruling administration.
This is almost a default Podemos position, and so it was when it came to the 2022 budget at Tuesday’s council meeting, when the one Podemos councillor, José Manuel Aranda Regules, proposed that the budget should be withdrawn from the agenda.
It is typically the case that Podemos don’t get any backing for such proposals. Which was sort of what happened on Tuesday. There were abstentions - the PP, Vox, Ciudadanos - but the budget remained firmly on the agenda, only José Manuel having voted that it shouldn’t.
When it finally came to approving the budget, José Manuel was there alongside Vox, and the PP and Cs.
But it was approved and it amounted to 33,287,183.71 euros. Yes, that precise. And what do you get for 33.29 million? More than a third - 13.84 million - will be on personnel, while 16.56 million is for the purchase of goods and services. How much of a surplus will be run up this year to add to the 90 million stashed away?
There again, as the councillor responsible for contracts, Joana Maria Bennàssar, explained a month ago, there are seven projects due to get the go-ahead and benefit from the surplus mountain.