A new delegate for Valencia
Spain's Council of Ministers on Tuesday, 20 October, named Roger Llanes as government delegate in the Valencian Community, replacing Pilar Bernabé. Llanes, an agronomist engineer and civil servant, has directed the office coordinating the execution of aid at the commission for dana reconstruction, where he worked for the past two years alongside commissioner Zulima Pérez and Bernabé. The government announced the appointment in a statement. He brings more than 30 years of experience in rural infrastructure, irrigation systems and agricultural policy, including posts in the regional government led by Ximo Puig. Bernabé will head the PSOE list for Valencia in the 29 November general elections, and her term as delegate ended on Tuesday.
Bernabé's farewell and the 2024 dana
Bernabé spoke to reporters during a meeting at an advanced command post in Oliva, Valencia, set up for the dana Adam, which was attended by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Generalitat president Juanfran Pérez Llorca and ministers Sara Aagesen, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Diana Morant. She said serving as delegate had been an honour and that many people would remember her in the post for the dana of 29 October 2024, which killed 233 people. She said she had learned a great deal from that catastrophe and set out what she took from it.
“The key to public service and politics is to look after people, listen to people, understand them when they suffer, and always be there.”
Bernabé added that she would apply that lesson when she stands for mayor of València in the municipal elections next May. She is also the PSOE's secretary of Equality.
Storm alert and the political row
Dana Adam flooded the Safor and Marina Alta comarcas on 19 October, leaving several people dead. The PP spokesman in the Valencian parliament, Nando Pastor, accused Bernabé of travelling to Madrid on Saturday, 17 October, to appear at PSOE rallies while rain alerts were in force in Valencia and Alicante. He said all Valencians knew what could happen and that the government delegate is responsible for security. The PP said it had cancelled several pre-campaign events planned for that week in different parts of the region.
The PSPV praised Bernabé's record at a press conference after the regional group's board meeting on Tuesday. Its spokesman, José Muñoz, said she had completed her term in the same way she began it.
“She ended her term the way she began it, with her boots on at the head of the emergency, filling them with mud and saving lives.”
Asturias and Catalonia
Cecilia Pérez was named government delegate in the Principality of Asturias, replacing Adriana Lastra, who has held the post since July 2024 and now heads the FSA-PSOE list to Congress for Asturias. Pérez has been mayor of El Franco since 2003, after earlier periods as a councillor from 1995 and as mayor in 1999 and 2000. She has also been president of the Federación Asturiana de Concejos since 2019. In Catalonia, José Crespín, subdelegate in Lleida since July 2018, will replace Carlos Prieto, who resigned to join the PSC lists for Congress in the 29 November election. Prieto had spent almost four years as subdelegate in Barcelona and three and a half years as government delegate in Catalonia. Both appointments take effect after publication in the Boletín Oficial del Estado.
Subdelegations in Galicia
The BOE published on Tuesday the removal of Obdulia Taboadela in A Coruña and Abel Losada in Pontevedra as subdelegates, and both will head PSOE lists to Congress in the 29 November election. Losada had held the post for almost three years, having arrived at the end of 2023. In his farewell he cited the unblocking of the Bomberos junction project, which had been stalled for 16 months, and he recalled 120 deaths from gender violence during his three years in office. Taboadela had returned to the A Coruña subdelegation on 11 September and stayed barely five weeks. The mayor of A Coruña, Inés Rey, had backed María Rivas to head the provincial list, a preference the PSdeG leadership did not follow.