Madrid--Behind the walls of a former tobacco factory, about 100 people excitedly discuss their plans for Madrid city hall, which from Saturday will be run by protesters from the "Indignados" (Outraged) movement, in an unprecedented experience for Spain.
The meeting was held on a hot afternoon at the Tabacalera -- a self-run cultural centre covered in street art in Lavapies, a scruffy Madrid neighbourhood that is a meeting point for "Indignados" activists.
"We have to work from the bottom up," said Yara Bermejo, a 36-year-old teacher. "What we are doing is identifying the priorities we will present."
The gathering came just a few days before 71-year-old retired judge Manuela Carmena is sworn in as mayor of the capital on Saturday.
She was voted in after protest parties gave Spain's ruling conservatives a battering in last month's local elections. Another Indignados leading light, Ada Colau, will become Barcelona's mayor Saturday.
Carmena's team is made up of representatives of neighbourhood associations, collectives and far-left parties like Podemos, the United Left and the environmentalists of Equo that banded together under a platform called "Ahora Madrid".
Many come from the "Indignados" protest movement against government spending cuts and corruption that occupied Spanish squares four years ago.
On Saturday, they will replace Spain's governing conservative Popular Party which has run Madrid city hall for 24 years.
The platform is without a doubt "a unique case in Europe" for a capital city, said Fernando Mendez, a researcher at the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy at the University of Geneva.
Ahora Madrid's candidate list and its programme were hammered out at gatherings like the one at the Tabacalera before being put to an online vote in which over 15,000 people participated.
The "Outraged" protest movement has already spawned a new party, Podemos, which is close to Greece's ruling Syriza.
Over the years of street protests, "relationships were built, political connections made", which led to the platform, said Juantxo Lopez de Uralede, spokesman for Equo.
He said a common complaint was made -- that the ruling conservative Popular Party and the main opposition Socialists "were out of touch with social reality".
"We did not feel listened to," he said.
People from diverse backgrounds joined forces: teachers like Bermejo, students from the association Youth Without a Future, anti-eviction activists, nurses who staged regular protests against cuts to healthcare spending and young political science professors.
AFP
