Juan Nicolás Cabrera accuses Mayra Marichal of lacking the courage to seek a Fuerteventura Island Council candidacy “through the back door”

Asambleas Municipales de Fuerteventura (AMF) president Juan Nicolás Cabrera indirectly accused the party’s councillor in Puerto del Rosario, Mayra Marichal, of wanting to stand as a candidate for Fuerteventura Island Council “through the back door”. He reproached her for not having the courage to put forward her proposal to the party’s Steering Committee, where only two candidacies were presented: one led by Antigua mayor Juan Cabrera and the other by Juan Nicolás Cabrera himself.

The party president said the electoral alliance shared by AMF, Nueva Canarias and Juntos por Pájara had chosen him after Antigua mayor Juan Cabrera withdrew.

Cabrera made the remarks at a press conference at eleven in the morning at Hotel El Mirador de Fuerteventura in Puerto del Rosario. He was accompanied by Pedro Armas, the party’s secretary for institutional relations and one of AMF’s founders. The political party will mark two decades since its founding on 13 March 2027.

Nine votes for the mayor of Antigua and seven for Cabrera

The AMF president said the process began in September, after Sergio LLoret, the former president of Fuerteventura Island Council, whom the party had been counting on, told him he could not stand as a candidate for the Council for personal reasons.

Cabrera said he then called a meeting of the Steering Committee and argued that both his proposal and that of the mayor of Antigua should be discussed.

In the vote on 30 September, Juan Cabrera received nine votes and Juan Nicolás Cabrera received seven.

The president said he appealed the vote after reviewing the minutes and finding, according to his account, that the mayor and two other attendees had voted despite not being members of the Island Executive.

However, the appeal went no further because the mayor of Antigua withdrew his candidacy the day before the meeting at which the alliance was due to discuss the proposals.

Cabrera said the mayor attended that meeting and set out his position, but that, following his withdrawal, his own was the only candidacy discussed, as he had already explained in an interview with La Voz de Fuerteventura.

Internal disagreements

A few days later, some members of the Island Executive called for a meeting of the body at which they would appoint Mayra Marichal as AMF’s candidate for the Island Council.

At the press conference, Juan Nicolás Cabrera argued that those who had signed the request for a meeting did not make up the third of the Island Executive they claimed to represent.

He said two of the eight people who signed the document were not members of the body, meaning the required third had not been reached.

The AMF president said he had considered calling the meeting, but half an hour later received minutes showing that the same group had already appointed Mayra Marichal as its candidate for the Island Council. “This is making a mockery of the party itself, of the president and of its statutes,” he stressed.

Island Executive to meet next week

The group that appointed Marichal as its candidate for the island’s main institution, and which disputes Cabrera’s candidacy, lodged two appeals with the Steering Committee.

The party body met yesterday, Tuesday, to reject the appeal seeking to overturn the selection process, ruling that it had been submitted after the deadline.

The second appeal concerned the calling of a meeting of the Island Executive. Cabrera said that was the president’s responsibility, adding that the signatories did not represent a third of the body.

Cabrera said the Island Executive would meet next week, although a date had yet to be set.

He said the aim was to make it possible for all its members to attend, inform them of what had happened and put the leadership’s actions before them for consideration.

Juan Nicolás Cabrera also announced the opening of an information-gathering procedure to collect documentation. At the press conference, he said he favoured dialogue, although afterwards he did not rule out disciplinary proceedings that could even lead to the expulsion of some members.

He said this was a scenario he would prefer to avoid, especially with an election approaching.

Sources consulted by La Voz de Fuerteventura among members of the alliance said the situation at AMF was an internal matter for the party and had no wider implications for Nueva Canarias or Juntos por Pájara.