"We will be alongside the workers of the Islands to pressure, demand, and call for bold measures for the citizens of this land". With these words, the spokesperson for Ara Més, Carme Gomila, asked for the vote this Monday, in the first appearance of the representatives of the Ara Més-Front Ampli coalition that is running in the general elections. The candidacy brings together seven political formations: MÉS per Mallorca, Més per Menorca, and Ara Eivissa in the Ara Més federation, and Sumar, Esquerra Unida, Progreso en Verde, and Recortes Zero as part of the Front Ampli.

The Government control session at the Parliament plenary stopped being about control a long time ago; it does not just come from this legislature. Now it is a boxing ring, a battlefield, where the one who lands the strongest dialectical punch wins, only to later show on social media how witty these politicians are. The rules are lax: bad jokes, offensive pranks, absurd comments, and repetitions ad infinitum are admitted. In view of the state of things, it is a good time to recognize those citizens who listen to the Parliament plenary sessions – in person or via YouTube – with the hope of finding an example of constructive politics.

The Més per Menorca assembly has unanimously proclaimed Andreu Servera as the party's candidate for the Parliament of the Balearic Islands for the May 2027 regional elections. The candidacy, also composed of Emma Navarro and Víctor Ferrer, has received the support of 115 registered members.

Although they have avoided media noise, the pace of the negotiations of Ara Més with the parties to the left of the PSIB has been “frenetic”. “I have lost track of time, with so many meetings,” assured a source from the negotiating team after nearly two weeks of back-and-forth. About to exhaust the deadline to be able to register the pacts with the Central Electoral Board (JEC), finally the eco-sovereigntists have closed an agreement with the parties integrated into the Broad Front –Sumar and United Left– to run in the form of a coalition for Congress, and another with the PSIB to go together for the Senate.

The membership of MÉS per Mallorca has ratified the agreement between Ara Més, Sumar, and Esquerra Unida to run in the general elections on November 29th. With the endorsement of 89% of the 110 members who attended the assembly and that of the bases of Més per Menorca and Ara Eivissa, the Ara Més federation has the go-ahead to register the coalition with the Electoral Board this Friday, the last day of the deadline. However, the goal of building a unitary list of all forces to the left of the PSIB has not been fully achieved because, for now, Podem has been left out of the equation. On the other hand, there are still some loose ends to tie up: the name, the image on the ballot, and the relationship within the parliamentary group, which sources from the formation hope will be clarified in the coming hours.

The PSIB has bet on the party's current spokesperson at the Council of Mallorca, Catalina Cladera, as its candidate for the Senate elections. Socialist sources assure that negotiations with MÉS per Mallorca to form a joint candidacy on the four islands are still ongoing but are on the right track, and they hope to be able to announce that there is an agreement this very Friday. In parallel, the party has also decided that the current senator, Pere Joan Pons, will replace Alfonso Rodríguez as the Spanish government delegate in the Islands, following the latter's resignation to focus on the municipal elections in Calvià.

"We are going out to win." This has been the declaration of intent by the President of Congress, Francina Armengol, this Thursday at the presentation of the PSIB list for the upcoming general elections. The former Balearic president has called for the mobilization of the female vote against the right and the far-right and has shown herself to be "convinced" that the negotiations with MÉS to present joint candidacies for the Senate "will bear fruit": "We are working full time in this direction".

MÉS per Palma, MÉS per Mallorca, the Coppieters Foundation and the Darder-Mascaró Foundations presented this Wednesday the fourth edition of the Anti-Fascist Weekend, which this year will be held under the motto 'Building a democratic horizon. European proposals'. The sessions will take place on October 16th and 17th at La Col·lectiva in Palma, with debates and workshops to respond to the rise of the far-right and the reactionary wave in Europe.

The executive meeting of MÉS per Mallorca that took place this Tuesday evening concluded with more unknowns than certainties. The space has not yet decided who will lead its list for the November 29th elections to Congress, nor has it definitively closed its alliances. What is known is that negotiations remain deadlocked with Podem, whom the eco-sovereigntists wanted to integrate within the framework of a candidacy developed from the Islands that would bring together all parties to the left of the PSIB. The two parties have differences regarding who should lead this candidacy. According to consulted sources, the group led by Lucía Muñoz has proposed to Ara Més to alternate the deputy (they count on obtaining one, as happened in 2023) every two years.

Virgilio Moreno has been the latest municipal candidate confirmed in Mallorca, after having been elected this past week by unanimity by the socialist group of Inca to head the list for the 2027 municipal elections. Moreno has been the mayor of Inca since June 2015, nearly eleven and a half years ago. He was a candidate for the PSIB-PSOE in 2015, 2019, and 2023, and by heading the list for 2027, it will be the fourth time he has run.

Alfonso Rodríguez announced this Wednesday that he will leave his post as delegate of the Spanish government in the Balearic Islands to dedicate himself fully to preparing for the May 2027 elections and attempting to regain the mayoralty of Calvià. Rodríguez stated that this decision has nothing to do with the general elections on November 29, which "have crossed paths" with his decision, made since he announced he would run in the municipal elections.

For a good part of society, housing is currently 'The Problem'. There are those who have lost their home, who are waiting to lose it, who do not know if they will lose it... The social outburst has surprised no one. In any case, what is surprising is that it has been a civic outburst. Unfortunately, for a good part of the politicians, housing is the star topic of the campaign, the weapon to throw in the rival's face, an empty word. Because the bricks of the building of this economic sector that we call politics are precisely that, words that the professionals of speeches have emptied of content: 'democracy', 'freedom', 'equality', 'rights', etc.

Early exam for Prohens

The PP had been calling for general elections for months. However, it would have preferred the early election to take place during the Ceuta crisis, and not during the housing protests. In last Tuesday's plenary session, both the president Marga Prohens and the Minister of Housing, José Luis Mateo, were questioned up to eight times about housing, and the opposition will not stop asking why the Government refuses to limit rental prices until the moment to vote arrives. The elections have become an early test of the Executive's management.

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The Balearic MEP Alícia Homs (PSOE) has demanded in the European Parliament that the European Union incorporate an insularity clause and systematically review its policies to take into account the needs of island territories. Homs has warned that the European strategy for islands runs the risk of remaining a simple diagnosis if it is not translated into concrete measures.

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Palma will be the first setting for a debate, on October 14th, on the protection and care of feminist activists and other social movements, organized by the Entrepobles Association, together with Casa La Serena (Consorcio Oaxaca, Mexico) and the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras). The tour, which under the title Defending life through care will travel through Mallorca, Catalonia, and the Valencian Country with the aim of connecting the experiences developed in Mesoamerica with the initiatives promoted by the movements in our territories: climate justice, defense of the territory, feminisms, and community care networks.

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There is an old military barracks in Palma that has been waiting for more than two decades to be converted into public housing. It is Son Busquets, an immense state-owned plot where 831 protected homes are currently planned. 20 years of announcements, projects, and discussions between administrations that have not served to make the apartments available to the public. Meanwhile, housing has gone from being a significant problem to becoming a social emergency.

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A PP councilor at the Council of Mallorca demanded this Friday before the United Nations the holding of a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara "that includes the option of independence." The head of Social Welfare and president of the Majorcan Institute of Social Affairs (IMAS), Guillermo Sánchez, defended in New York that the Sahrawi people be able to “freely decide their future.” He did so just one day after Vox, the popular party's governing partner at the island institution, lashed out harshly against the international cooperation policies promoted by the Council itself. Despite governing together at the Council, the PP and Vox thus maintain conflicting positions regarding the institution's external action.

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The Council of Mallorca does not intend to back down and will maintain the new waste fee and the extraordinary payment of 41.4 million euros to Tirme despite the new questions raised by the opposition. The plenary session of the Council of Mallorca rejected this Thursday, with the votes of the PP and Vox, the motion with which the PSIB-PSOE demanded the withdrawal of the two files until the doubts raised by the control bodies regarding the concessionaire's accounts were clarified.

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"I have never had to vote for something different from what I believed." Josep Castells (Barcelona, 1970) made this reflection in September, when he announced that he would leave politics at the end of the term, after 12 years as a deputy for Més per Menorca in the Parliament. He acknowledges that maintaining coherence is a privilege in current times, when many politicians are subject to the discipline of state parties. And he also emphasizes that, despite everything he has experienced during these three terms, he still maintains the naivety of thinking that things can be changed, even if only a little.

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The Socialist Group of Inca has unanimously confirmed its general secretary and mayor of the city, Virgilio Moreno, as the candidate for mayor for the upcoming municipal elections in May 2027.

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