Formentera, a 21st-century laboratory

IbizaFormentera could be a subject of study in Political Science textbooks. The smallest of the Pitiusas Islands (the southern Pitiusa, as many Formentera residents prefer to be called) has had its own council for 18 years. On July 10, 2007, with a simple political maneuver, the Formentera Town Hall was magically transformed into the Consell de Formentera, with political power equivalent to that of the other Balearic councils. Jaume Ferrer Ribas, candidate for the Gent per Formentera party, was its first president; Ferrer governed for three terms; Gent per Formentera governed in coalition with the PSOE for another term, in what constitutes one of the greatest demonstrations of political hegemony in the Balearic Islands (2007-2023).

Since establishing their own Consell, the people of Formentera have enjoyed a vibrant political life: they launched the first vehicle entry regulation project in the Balearic Islands (Formentera.eco, later copied in Ibiza); they faced one of the largest increases in housing prices in Spain and, consequently, a persistent shortage of professionals in many fields; they experimented with how to reconcile tourism development and environmental protection with varying degrees of success; they launched electorally successful political experiments such as Gent per Formentera and Compromís con Formentera, independent of the major traditional parties; they demonstrated, through the Council of Entities of Formentera, that genuine citizen participation in politics was possible; and they faced the biggest migration crisis in the Balearic Islands with virtually no human or material resources.

Formentera is small: 83.2 square kilometers, 11,640 inhabitants, and, until recently, relatively cohesive from a social point of view. And this is really the crux of the matter: its size and a population involved in its own future, with a strong sense of identity (at least in part), have been the fuel for Formentera's political innovation.

The Formentera oasis

Let's face it: many Ibizans have looked at Formentera with a touch of envy for years. Healthy envy, mind you. Compared to chaotic, ultraliberal Ibiza, feverish with youth and money, it seemed the Formenterans were at least trying. Trying what?: squaring the circle, turning lead into gold, the ultimate Balearic alchemy, the union of Marc Ferrer and Adam Smith into a single being. Without metaphors: making environmental protection (and their own identity) compatible with a tourism monoculture; being paradise and being rich at the same time, being themselves and making money simultaneously. Marc Ferrer, the driving force behind Formentera's reforestation in the early 18th century, would look at his descendants and say: "Oh yes, my children! That's how it should be done!"

The Formentera oasis shattered completely during the fourth and final progressive legislature (2019-2023), in which the PSOE and Gent per Formentera shared the government for two years each. The pressure of housing prices—so high that the population of Formentera declined between 2020 and 2024—the regulation of anchorages in Estany del Peix, and the controversial concession of beach kiosks, among other issues, were just some of the factors that would lead the left to the opposition. And so, Sa Unió (a coalition made up of the PP and Compromís con Formentera, led by the independent Llorenç Córdoba) won the 2023 elections and assumed power. And nobody was prepared for what came next.

The year we lived dangerously

Nobody was prepared for the 'Cordoba effect'. The year we lived dangerously It's a 1982 film starring Mel Gibson. In Formentera, it wasn't a year, but a year and a half. Llorenç Córdoba Marí, a veterinarian by profession, born in Ibiza in 1973, was sworn in as president of Formentera on June 17, 2023, and was ousted by his former partners on December 27, 2024, with the same motion of no confidence: seven votes in favor: seven votes in favor: Lorenzo Córdoba. It's difficult to explain what happened, and we'll probably never fully understand it. A perfect storm of self-interest, narcissism, and disloyalty; the president isolated, the absolute monarch of a single chair.

The result: more than a year of political paralysis in the Formentera Council; a lamentable spectacle, painfully ridiculous, that reached all the national media; the people of Formentera more burned out than anyone. foreigner Without an umbrella. In June 2024, Llorenç Córdoba himself declared on Onda Cero: "In Formentera, we have been pioneers in many things, and also in political absurdity without objective reason." A good summary. The political experiments, which until now had gone well (at least, the invention hadn't backfired on anyone), had finally derailed an institution that manages a budget of 43.5 million euros.

Apparently, Formentera's politicians have regained their sanity. Córdoba's successor, Óscar Portas Juan, a member of Compromís per Formentera and formerly a French teacher at the IES Marc Ferrer, represents a moderate style, far removed from conflict. It's peace after the storm. But Formentera's major problems, the improbable squaring of the circle, remain like a bull in a china shop. Paradise or money: that is the question.