- María García-Barberena and Fermín Alonso, councillors of the City of Pamplona, Navarra Suma, will also participate in the PP's lists in the next municipal elections. They will occupy the third and fifth place on the PP list in the City Hall of Pamplona, respectively. They have also left UPN militancy.
Enrique Maya, mayor of Pamplona, accuses them of infidelity, expels them from the municipal government board and asks them to cease their position as councillor. Fermín Alonso has been a member of Strategic Projects, Mobility and Sustainability and García-Barberena has led Culture and Equality. García-Barberena has played a major role in this last year, among other things because he has led the controversial barbeque project of the Plaza del Castillo de San Fermín de Pamplona.
Both councilors have pointed out that the PP represents better than the UPN the values of the center-right of Navarre and is more appropriate to “defend freedom, constitutionalism and the foral regime”, because in addition to “an exciting, open and inclusive space”, it “has a clear and strong leadership”. Nor was it considered appropriate for UPN to have decided on its own to dissolve the Navarra Suma coalition.
The news shows that the loss of UPN positions or militants has not ended, and it is to be assumed, as the PP has announced, that as the elections approach there will be more. Tensions between UPN and PP have increased in recent months, first when last year UPN Deputies Carlos García Adanero and Sergio Sayas were expelled from UPN, and then when UPN decided that it would only be presented to the municipal and foreign elections on May 28.
García-Barberena and Alonso supported Sayas in the 2020 UPN congress, when the latter competed Javier Esparza in the party presidency. Esparza then won easily, but of the 1,774 members who voted, Sayas won 41.71% of the votes. Since today, curiously, García Adanero became part of the Esparza management list, which will now be the head of the PP list in the City of Pamplona.
The president of UPN, however, pointed out that the current news has not been surprised, “we all know each other” and added that it is quiet: “Do you see me worried?” But it seems that he has reason to be concerned, because María Kutz, Luis Zarraluqui, Maribel García Malo and Ruth Goñi, who previously held significant positions with UPN, have joined the PP. At an event held by the PP on Wednesday in Baztan, Begoña Sanzberro, former UPN member and parliamentarian.