Political and personal disagreements have led to a change in the mayorship of Pont de Molins, a municipality with fewer than 600 inhabitants in the Alt Empordà region. The trigger was a yoga class, which has resulted in a no-confidence vote against the current ERC mayor, Marie Louise Gournay.
On June 1st, the mayor stripped the deputy mayor, Jordi Carreras, also from ERC, of his powers, accusing him of "abuse of power" for using a municipal room that "hindered" a yoga class for women. According to the mayor's statement, the women had felt "uncomfortable, harassed, and intimidated".
Carreras, who denies the allegations, retaliated by presenting a no-confidence motion with the support of the three Junts councillors. Consequently, ERC, which governed with four out of seven councillors, will cede the mayorship to Junts, which holds three seats, next Thursday.
The councillor, a journalist, explains that he was finishing writing an article in the room where yoga is held when the instructor and four students arrived. He asked if they minded him finishing in fifteen minutes, and he asserts that they all replied "no problem".
The yoga instructor also refuted the mayor's accusations in a social media post, stating that the situation "does not reflect the reality as we experienced it" and that it had been presented "out of context and with a gravity that does not correspond to the events".
Carreras considers the mayor's behavior "authoritarian" and believes she is using this incident as an "excuse" to sideline him. The atmosphere in the council had already been "unbearable" since the beginning of the year, according to the councillor.
The regional leadership of Junts in Alt Empordà, however, rejects the motion and expresses its "perplexity and disagreement," as the decision by its councillors was not agreed upon with the party's leadership.
The president of ERC in Alt Empordà, Frederic Guirado, has supported the motion, arguing that the town is "ungovernable" and that the motion is presented "thinking of the town's well-being," even though the mayorship will go to Junts.
