Socialist councilor Fanny Serrano appeared at Torrevieja Town Hall this Thursday, registering as a non-affiliated councilor. After the formalization, the socialist municipal group, which began the week with five mayors, is now reduced to three. This change follows the July departure of Rodolfo Carmona, the mayor elected in 2019 under the PSOE banner, who left the group and continues his public service separate from the party structure.
Serrano, a long-time urban planning lawyer and a PSOE activist for more than twenty years, has served as a councilor for the PSOE in Torrevieja since 2011. Before settling in Torrevieja, he spent four years in La Vila Joiosa. In 2015 he was elected provincial deputy and later became the first deputy mayor and councilor for urban planning in Torrevieja during a progressive coalition government that included several minority parties and displaced the People’s Party. Serrano also has a record as a trusted member of PSPV and has held advisory roles at the county council, city councils, and within the party apparatus.
During his current term, while part of the opposition, Serrano’s group did not grant co-spokesperson status so that it could participate in plenary sessions. The interventions were noted for their sharp critique, which kept the governing majority on alert, and for a period of a year these interventions were limited within information commissions.
In a surprising turn, Serrano reemerged to participate actively in the college bodies, taking the floor first thing each morning as councilor, even though the role of mayor remained unassigned. His reentry into the dialogue occurred amid a broader debate over representation and influence within the local political landscape, with Serrano’s presence signaling a renewed push to shape the agenda and debates of the council from an unaffiliated position.
The move of unaffiliated members into the local PSOE setup—an arrangement already shared by former PSOE council members, as well as Los Verdes and Vox in recent years—signals a new internal crisis for the party at Torrevieja. The tensions put Andrés Navarro, the spokesperson and secretary general for the mayoral candidacy in the upcoming municipal elections, and Andrés Antón, the Organisation’s councilor and secretary, at the center of the dispute. The evolving dynamics illustrate how party alignment and individual mandates influence local governance and the control of the city’s planning and development agenda.