Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)THE mayor of Gaucin has stepped down amid mounting speculation about his personal life.
Francisco Ruiz is the third mayor in four years to stand down.
It follows the PP mayor’s mysterious “disappearance” in April, after which he announced he would resign.
Spanish reports claim it came after the suicide of a friend, in connection with his relationship with a female socialist councillor.
He had hired the woman just one month after coming to office.
Despite having only 2000 inhabitants the white village has proved a magnet for controversy and scandal over the years.
The Olive Press reported last year how Ruiz has threatened to close the town hall which was on the brink of bankruptcy.
For an in depth feature on the shenanigans visit:
https://theolivepress.es/2008/10/20/a-secret-swiss-bank-account-the-near-concreting-of-a-famous-white-town-and-a-soap-that%e2%80%99s-anything-but-clean/
Greed + concrete = graft!! It’s 1986 and we are out for the day, and take an unmarked road/track to Gaucin from Manilva, without giving too much heed of a notice advising caution. The road was in a state….ok.for my Landrover though. Arriving at the bridge over Rio Genal, we had arrived in ‘God’s country’. The most beautiful valley with a river of crystal water, guarded by monumental hillsides rising to the clouds. I was in love instantly ….found a riverside finca and for sale board lying in the grass,with vultures watching overhead.
Thus began a story where my virginal aspirations eventually got cooked by greed…..fortunately not mine.I saw how a beautiful and dynamic Spanish woman could get the right result when needed. I saw how money could make things happen. How the woman and money together moved mountains.
Every sin in the bible became a story in itself, and life took on the aura of a movie set, where the next episode wrote itself.
I had come from Algarve, which had the exposure of a Devonian country village. Marbella, then Gaucin stacked up to a latter day Sodom and Gomorrah.
For sure, every day was exciting but wearing.I became slowly tuned to life in the fast lane….fast….Gaucin!?
Eventually,after four years, I had to end the dream with a one way ticket back to sanity. Tears always took me over the mountains, back to the Algarve, accompanied by Julio Iglesias, of course!
Gaucin is worthy of a TV soap, with Juan ‘machina’, El Zoro,
Ingrid, Tinto, and a cast of thirty characters or more.
Maybe I should drop a line to Pedro Almadovar!!
So if you don’t mind being a player in the opera, don’t whinge…..sit back and enjoy the story, as corrupt it will surely be.