Joan Moranta, new president of GOB Mallorca

PalmaJoan Moranta has assumed the interim presidency of GOB Mallorca after the resignation of Teresa Cuennet and a dozen members of the board of directors, in an internal crisis that has been straining the island's main environmental organization for months. In a statement published this Tuesday, GOB reports that Moranta is provisionally assuming the presidency "with the will to guarantee the continuity of the organization and ongoing projects" while the new internal phase of the collective is redefined.

The entity has also sent to its associates the decision of the board of directors to choose Moranta, and the rest of the positions elected to lead this new stage: "The Board of Directors, meeting on Monday, May 25, agreed that Joan Moranta will assume the presidency of GOB Mallorca on an interim basis. Likewise, Antonina Siquier was elected as vice-president. Mercè Morató will continue in the position of secretary and Toni Font, in addition to continuing as treasurer, will also assume representation on the Interinsular Board," GOB explained to its members.

The rest of the positions in the current GOB board "are held by Jaume Canals, Maria Fullana, Xavier Garí, Margaret Hayles, Antònia Llabrés, Aina Llauger, Catalina Massutí, Biel Pomar and Marina Tyosse," the entity informs its associates.

A crisis evidenced last Friday

The crisis became public last Friday during an extraordinary assembly held in Palma, in which Teresa Cuennet and ten more members presented their resignation due to internal discrepancies with the rest of the board. According to sources present at the assembly, the differences referred to both organizational issues and the entity's operating model, but the resigning members explained in a statement that it was mainly the manners that led them to decide to leave the board.

In the note now released by GOB Mallorca, the organization claims that it will continue to work "normally" on the environmental and territorial campaigns currently underway, and defends the need to "preserve the entity's cohesion" after months of intense internal wear and tear. The text also thanks Cuennet and the resigning members for their work and emphasizes that the intention is "to open a new phase of dialogue and internal reconstruction".

Moranta had already become the visible face of the critical sector during the extraordinary assembly of December 2024, the first in more than fifty years of GOB's history with two different candidacies for the presidency. Finally, Teresa Cuennet won with 80 votes against the 37 obtained by Moranta.

That assembly already showed two different visions on the future of GOB. Cuennet advocated for deepening a “more feminist and ecosocial” model, with a less presidentialist and more collective structure. On the contrary, Moranta called for “recovering local delegations” and reinforcing GOB’s own presence “on the street” and in classic territorial struggles.

The handover comes at a particularly significant moment for the Balearic environmental movement, with open debates on tourist over-saturation, urbanism, housing, and territory, and with a series of parliamentary agreements and new regulations that prioritize legalization in rural areas and the reduction of environmental procedures for certain urban developments. GOB insists in the statement that the entity will maintain “a firm commitment to the defense of the territory, environmental justice, and the ecosocial transformation of Mallorca”.