Valencia leader Carlos Mazón resigns over handling of deadly floods
Carlos Mazón, president of Spain’s Valencia region, resigned last year after months of pressure over his handling of flash floods.
In Spain’s worst natural disaster for decades, a total of 229 people died in towns in the Valencia region on October 29, 2024, and eight more people died in neighboring areas.
Many in Valencia blamed Mazón for the extent of the tragedy because of his and his government’s reaction that day.
It emerged that the regional president spent nearly four hours in a restaurant with journalist Maribel Vilaplana as floodwaters wreaked havoc and did not attend emergency meetings for most of the day.
Mazón’s government also failed to send an emergency alert to the phones of Valencia residents warning them of the flooding and issuing advisories until 20:00; By this time, dozens of people had died.
“I can’t go on any longer… I know I made mistakes, I accept that, and I will live with them for the rest of my life,” Mazón said in explaining his decision, adding that he had to cancel his schedule that day to take responsibility for the crisis.
“I apologized and I say it again but nothing [the mistakes] “It was due to political calculations or bad intentions.”
Polls had shown that the majority of people in Valencia wanted the resignation of Mazón from the conservative People’s Party (PP) over his flood management.
Monthly protests demanding his resignation have been held, with an estimated 50,000 people gathering on the streets of Valencia, most recently on 25 October. Mazón had been making less public appearances in recent months due to the harassment he received from the public.
But his insistence on attending a memorial service for the victims on the first anniversary of the tragedy last week angered relatives of the dead, and some barracked him during the ceremony.
Mazón appeared shaken by the experience, which led to his decision to resign.
His announcement came the same day Maribel Vilaplana, a journalist with whom he had lunch on the day of the flood, testified before a judge investigating possible negligence.
According to Spanish media reports, Vilaplana told the judge that Mazón was “constantly texting on his phone” and at one point received “numerous calls.”
Mazón will continue as a member of the regional parliament, meaning he will have immunity from prosecution.
During his resignation announcement, Mazón criticized Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing central government, accusing it of blocking aid to his region “purely to cause us political damage.”
Mazón has become an increasingly problematic figure for the PP over the past year; There were concerns that its decline in popularity threatened to undermine the party’s electoral prospects not only in the Valencia region but nationwide.
However, his removal was complicated by the PP’s reliance on parliamentary support in the far-right Vox region. The party, which is gaining ground ahead of the PP in polls there, will have to agree with his successor.
