PP to Get Madrid Mayor's Office After Ciudadanos Deal: El Pais

(Bloomberg) -- Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida of the People’s Party will be the next mayor of Madrid and will govern in coalition with Ciudadanos after reaching an accord late Friday, El Pais reports.

The deal hinges on support from the Spanish nationalist party Vox, El Pais said. Vox will give support from its four councilors in exchange for positions in municipal councils in proportion to the electoral votes they obtained, El Pais says.

Teodoro Garcia Egea, secretary general of the PP, confirmed on Twitter that a deal has been struck without providing further details.

The PP and Ciudadanos agreed to share posts in the new government equally, with Begonia Villacis of Ciudadanos becoming deputy mayor. Among their objectives are plans to lower taxes and ensure that a project to develop the north of Madrid goes ahead.

The coalition will replace the left-wing government of Manuela Carmena and another of its policies will be to water down her project to restrict traffic in central Madrid.

In Barcelona, the left-wing candidate Ada Colau looked close to securing a second term as mayor after reaching an agreement with the Socialists of Catalonia and Manuel Valls, an independent candidate who was previously prime minister of France. Colau looks set to snatch the mayor’s office from the Catalan pro-independence party Esquerra Republicana, or ERC, which won 5,000 votes more but has failed to strike any deals to form a government.

To contact the reporter on this story: Charlie Devereux in Madrid at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, James Ludden, Namitha Jagadeesh

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