Madrid. Former judge committed, militant anti-Franco and defender of human rights, Manuela Carmena is, at 71 years and almost unwittingly, the new Mayor Madrid in the hands of leftist can , with sometimes critical shown.
From diaphanous eyes, wide smile and calm voice, this woman who travels by bicycle and gestures when talking achieved thanks to the support of the Socialists to end 24 years of conservative municipalities of the Popular Party.
“We are serving the citizens of Madrid “he said after accepting the position. “We want to rule listening to call us by our first names, which tuteen us.”
Among his promises, tackle corruption, promote public transport, subsidizing families disadvantaged and lowered wages. 100,000 euros to 45,000 per year
Described by some as “blank verse” within Podemos, Carmena had whipped in March the party would vote against a European Parliament resolution calling for the release of political dissidents imprisoned in Venezuela .
As rapporteur and member of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN, had already criticized in 2009 for that country, which have links several founders of the party.
After 45 years as a lawyer and judge, the formation of Pablo Iglesias suggested he enter politics in late 2014 and for months refused to feel too old, he explained to the channel La Sexta .
“But successive and started calling various friends who came to tell me: ‘girl, lend a hand, they need you, they need someone with experience, carrying a backpack Many proposals. ‘” And finally accepted.
Carmena , with a modern look thanks to her blond hair tousled, his glasses retro style and elegant jackets always rolled up with matching earrings, has lived the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), the transition to democracy and the crisis of Spanish politics.
“The politicians think we failed, it has failed to make the policy that needed the late twentieth century and the twenty-first century (…) The society is demanding a much more direct democracy that allow new media technology” he said in the La Tuerka program, run by Iglesias
-. ‘Improving the world’ –
Born 9 February 1944 into a family of merchants Madrid, from very small “was clear we had to improve the world,” he recounted
Law student . Madrid , in 1960 entered the then illegal Communist Party to “fight against Franco,” which earned him expulsion from the university.
Degree in 1965, he devoted himself to defend the workers founded a firm of a labor lawyer, notorious for an attack of the extreme right in 1977 killed several of his colleagues and shocked the nation.
appointed a judge in 1981 in a Spain macho, one of his superiors told him: “I can not give congratulations, first because you’re a woman and because you are a red, and I do not want anything you’re in judiciary, “he recalls with great laughter.
It was magistrate, prison supervision, member of the General Council of the Judiciary, an emeritus member of the Supreme Court. In 2010 he retired and began to devote himself to “explain justice”, with lectures, a blog or creating an original board game named “Play-tos”. Also created a joint company that helps women prisoners.
“You, Mrs. Carmena , does not have a monopoly on compassion,” he threw his conservative rival Esperanza Aguirre, in a televised debate, reproaching her husband, an architect sunk by the crisis, not to pay some workers despite having her property by hundreds of thousands of euros.
And she, having released years a prisoner of the armed Basque separatist organization ETA and advised the Basque regional government on compensation to victims of police abuse, including ETA.
“What I did not say that denigrate me is that I myself was threatened by ETA “, said Carmena , explaining that a decade ago “I appeared documentation they prepared an attack against me” when the organization “had killed several judges”.
A can , set for less year and a half, he warns against the rush for power, “if we have to slow it does not matter, but do it right”
. Source: AFP
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