CitadelSix coordinators in seven years and no representatives of their own in the institutions. Vox's overtaking In the 2023 municipal and regional elections in Menorca, the results have come to nothing. Neither of the two public officials who obtained representation, Maite de Medrano (in the Consell and the Ciutadella City Council) and Xisco Cardona (in the Parliament and the Mahon City Council) remain in the party. Expelled or having resigned, both are now acting as unaffiliated members and are orphaned by the nearly 2,500 voters – 6.2% of the Menorcan electorate – who cast their votes in the elections two years ago.
But, at the organizational level, the defeat is almost as, if not more, significant. Driven by internal struggles at the Balearic level and with the state leadership, Santiago Abascal's party has had to change its structure and positions in Menorca almost every year. Since Vox was established on the island in 2018, the coordination has passed from one hand to another. From Dionisio Tobajas to Sem Seguí, via the former Popular Party deputy Antoni Camps, current MP Xisco Cardona, Rear Admiral Santiago Barber, and now businessman Pedro Marquès.
The latest trigger was the Balearic leadership's refusal to pay the rent for the party's headquarters in Maó. A red line, according to Barber, who has opted to withdraw, along with his core group: Miguel Galán and the De Vicente sisters. Santiago Barber maintains his membership, as does another of the four officials who, until a month ago, formed Vox's leadership in Menorca. Beyond personal disenchantment, Barber has not resigned from the party because "he still believes in Vox's program, which is above people's behavior."
The hand of Antoni Camps
Some voices, both inside and outside the party, see Antoni Camps as a key player. The former regional minister and deputy abruptly left the PP in 2019 to embrace Vox. He was the candidate and island coordinator until he decided to resign in 2022. Since then, he has not returned to active politics, "nor do I have any intention of doing so," he says. In fact, he spent a few months in the Dominican Republic, where his partner is from.
It was Camps who recruited Pedro Marquès to lead Vox's regional candidacy in 2019 and, according to some sources, he was also the one who convinced him now, after Gabriel Le Senne himself contacted him. "If I can, I will help him, but nothing more. I will not be seen in any public office again," Camps states.
When he stepped down as Vox's leader, he was replaced by current MP Xisco Cardona, the first public official of the far-right party in the Balearic Islands to hold office. Having been dismissed as deputy spokesperson for the parliamentary group in October 2023, he left Vox to become a member of parliament. The following day, he also resigned as the party's island coordinator.
For her part, Maite de Medrano was summarily expelled after aligning herself with the internal movements most critical of the state leadership. Abascal's team, says De Medrano, "has betrayed its principles" and took advantage of the general policy debate in the Consell in June to claim that the current Vox "is rotten."
With so much internal turmoil, the new coordinator Pedro Marquès is aware that it is necessary to bring peace and regain public trust. Therefore, as soon as he was appointed, he gave the recipe for Gabriel Le Senne"What we need is stability and continuity. The electorate can forgive us for a slip-up like the one we've had, I hope, but two... We can't allow it to happen again," he asserts. "Xisco Cardona and Maite de Medrano have betrayed us, they've left the party in the lurch," he denounces, pledging to "do what I can to regain credibility, which can only be earned through actions. The votes are there, but we have to get the people right. We have to turn the page and elect reliable people."
Pedro Marquès blames the poor selection of current public officials on the regional deputy Xisco Cardona. He recalls that he joined Vox with Antoni Camps and Jorge Campos, "and we managed to give it a certain stability, but when Camps had to resign, and with him, all of us, we were replaced by Xisco Cardona, who reaped the fruits of our planning. He scorned the people who had worked within us and brought Maite de Med into parliament."
There's no turning back for Cardona and De Medrano. The former made it clear that he would never run for Vox again, and he no longer wants to speak to the regional leadership about De Medrano, who was expelled from the party at the end of May. Marquès personally confirmed this at the meeting he attended last week in Palma. "We have to light a new fire."
The Vox party that Marquès now leads in Menorca retains around forty members and a WhatsApp group with supporters that has 147 contacts. Therefore, his first decision was "to maintain, for now, the entire structure, including the local coordinators, with the idea that, over time, I can renew it in my own way." However, although the electoral horizon, in principle, is set for the 2027 elections, he says: "General elections can be called at any time and we must be prepared."
Lists in all municipalities
The goal is to regain representation, as it has been until now, in Menorca's main institutions (the Island Council and the city councils of Ciutadella and Mahon), but Pedro Marquès considers it "essential to be able to present lists in all municipalities. We must ensure that anyone who wants to vote for Vox can do so."
What he has noticed is that, despite the lack of credibility due to the internal crises suffered throughout the legislature, "the social stigma that was perceived against Vox before the pandemic is no longer there. Not only among young people. There is greater receptivity and social acceptance that has not stopped the trickle of votes. straighten out," he believes.
Each proposal by Councillor Maite de Medrano has cost Menorcans an average of 14,000 euros.
Rogue councilor Maite de Medrano has been collecting allowances for attending plenary sessions and committees for three months. Since Vox expelled her at the end of May, she has not been entitled to remuneration. She has, however, received it for the previous two years. In the first four months, she received exclusive remuneration for being part of the governing team alongside the PP, and for the subsequent 20 months, she has received only 50% as spokesperson for the opposition. The estimated cost of her public salary for these nearly two and a half years of legislature exceeds €100,000, not including party allocations or the part-time work of a person associated with her position, to whom she is no longer entitled as a non-affiliated councilor.
In all this time, 36 full seats in 28 months, Maite de Medrano has only presented four proposals for agreement (three of them on national issues), one interpellation, and one question, excluding those formulated during the general policy debate. Each of these initiatives has thus cost the Menorcans an average of 14,000 euros.
Now, no longer part of Vox, she claims to have "a free hand" to negotiate an agreement with the PP that would bring stability to the remainder of the legislature. The Popular Party, which already ousted her from the government in October 2023 after De Medrano fell out with their island leader, needs her to secure the absolute majority they failed to achieve at the polls. Only De Medrano can give them the decisive vote to push through the budget and the controversial reform of the Island Territorial Plan (PTI).
![Maite Medrano.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 16 9"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
