Muévete to run alone in Pájara, while acknowledging contacts over the Island Council and Canary Islands Government

Muévete is beginning to shape its strategy for the local elections in May 2027, having publicly launched in early September as a new municipal political project. The group will run alone for Pájara Town Council, although it acknowledges that it is in contact with other political forces ahead of elections to the Fuerteventura Island Council and the Canary Islands Government.

Its members told La Voz de Fuerteventura exclusively, without naming their interlocutors. “Obviously, we’re not going to say who. But we are in contact,” they said.

The group has not yet decided who will stand as its candidate for mayor. Alba Jaime is currently Muévete’s president, but rejects the idea that holding that position automatically makes her the lead candidate on the electoral list.

They say the decision will be made collectively at a later date. “When the time comes to draw up the lists, I suppose we’ll sit down and talk, and decide together.”

The organisation also says it has “several candidates” who could take the top spot.

It hopes the enthusiasm generated by this social movement’s transformation into a political project will help it overcome barriers and secure good results in the local elections. “We’ve set out to win, to solve residents’ problems,” treasurer Ángel Machuca said firmly. However, he ruled out an absolute majority, adding: “We have to keep our feet on the ground.”

Neither left nor right, focused on delivery

One point the group’s founders emphasise is their determination not to place Muévete within the traditional left-right political spectrum.

“We are a party focused on management, with residents at the very centre of all our policies,” said the organisation’s secretary, Teodoro Cabrera. “We have no ideology of either the right or the left. Management and the resident. That is our ideology.”

This is also the position they take on potential red lines in any political agreements. They have not set any for now. They say that the ideological leanings of their members have not been discussed at internal meetings either. “We don’t talk about politics among ourselves. We talk about management,” they stressed.

From residents’ protest to political party

Some of Muévete’s core members come from the protests and residents’ campaigns held in Costa Calma in recent years over problems relating to services, maintenance and the condition of certain housing developments.

Alba Jaime says the group emerged after several people involved in these campaigns concluded that acting separately was not producing the results they had hoped for.

“We’ve come together to find solutions to all these problems and, since we weren’t achieving as much separately, we decided to take this step,” she said. For Jaime, “politics must be a tool for the people and for the common good”.

Ángel Machuca directly links the move into politics to the experience they have built up as a residents’ movement. He says they once waited “almost eighteen months” to be received by the Town Council.

“We pay taxes, we want services, and we don’t have them. And things are getting worse,” he said.

Although much of the project’s origins lie in Costa Calma, Muévete stresses that it covers the whole municipality. The group says it already includes people from Morro Jable, Costa Calma and La Lajita, as well as new members from other parts of Pájara.

In recent weeks, it has also begun meeting residents, associations and groups to gather proposals before finalising its election programme. “We’re currently gathering ideas and residents’ concerns, and listening to them,” they said.

Housing, cleaning and public services

Although its programme has not yet been finalised, Muévete has outlined some of the areas it considers priorities.

Housing is one of them. Alba Jaime says new building projects need to be promoted, including social housing, and solutions must be found to rising rents. “They’re through the roof; it’s not viable for working people,” she said.

The group also lists cleaning and the upkeep of parks and gardens, improvements to social and health services, and the municipality’s educational needs among its priorities.

On education, its members point to the need for both new facilities and maintenance of those already in place. “It’s not just that we’re asking for secondary schools in Costa Calma; it’s also about maintaining what we already have, in Costa Calma, Morro Jable and the rest of the municipality,” Jaime said.

It will also include proposals on sport and animal welfare, while continuing to meet associations, groups and individuals in different localities.

Muévete says listening to residents will provide the basis for the programme it will put forward when it contests Pájara’s local elections for the first time in 2027.