The Tall Guy (Miquel Llompart)

Miquel Llompart was formally voted in as Alcúdia's new mayor on Saturday, confirming what had been, for some weeks, the formality of his ascent to the mayoral throne. As is normal, a mayor is selected by council members, and not directly by the electorate. In Alcúdia, this means the combined muscle of the Unió Mallorquina (UM) and the PSOE socialists, the pact that controls the town hall. Llompart has promised continuity in working with "integrity, humility and transparency", attributes sometimes in limited supply in Mallorcan politics. There is no reason not to believe him.

The act of voting for Llompart took place in the town hall meeting room, wherein were other mayors from the UM, such as Joan Cerdà from Pollensa, who heard the new mayor say that "on behalf of every citizen, it will be an honour to serve as town mayor". This echoed a point he made when I met him. Yet for all that he, or indeed any mayor, might declare himself a servant of all the people, of whatever nationality, a question remains as to quite how much interest there is, among these different nationalities, as to who actually occupies the mayoral seat. I happen to believe that there should be an interest, not that non-locals necessarily take an active role in local politics, but that they at least know something about the man at the top. It is as important to know the person as it is to know what his politics are. Mayors in Mallorca are, or should be, very close to the towns' residents. A further question, though, surrounds how well these mayors actually communicate with their diverse populations.

Towns such as Alcúdia have become increasingly cosmopolitan, yet there has been a retrenchment into communicative ghettoes, in which Mallorquín-Catalan is the de facto standard of communication. Understandable though this may be, it does not, however, reflect the nature of the population. The town halls cannot be expected to communicate in every language, and it can be argued that it is up to those living in the towns to make themselves capable of understanding the standard language, but that doesn't reflect reality. Just as the town halls are ham-fisted in communicating information of a tourism nature, so they usually fail to make any compromise in general communication. English - at least English, as the international language - could, indeed should, be used on the town halls' websites (and not the tourism ones, but those for all residents of the towns). German also. This might be seen as pandering to incomers from other countries and as being at variance with the politics of Catalan, but it would be a more realistic approach and would achieve the ambition - of the likes of Miquel Llompart - to be close to all citizens. It really should not be difficult to establish full English and German pages on the town halls' websites. One might even add that this could offer an educative function for what the university in Palma has exposed as weak standards of English.

It will be interesting to see how "different" Llompart might be. Not only is he highly popular in Alcúdia, partly because of his basketball background, he also has a reputation for rankling more conservative elements within his party. He will also be one of the youngest mayors on the island, to say nothing of his being the tallest - a point that "The Diario" was keen to highlight the other day. At 1.95 metres, or 6' 4", he's going to dominate Alcúdia politics, in more than one sense of the word.


QUIZ:
Yesterday's title - James Morrison. Today's title - which actor was the "tall guy"?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.