Pablo Arranz
The former mayor of Cervo resigns from his position as he is being investigated following a complaint filed «months ago» for alleged sexual assault
The former Conselleiro do Mar, Alfonso Villares, stepped down from his position in the Galician government this Wednesday, two years after in June 2023, the president, Alfonso Rueda, with whom he maintains a friendship, decided to ‘promote’ him to head of an autonomous department after a long local career as mayor of Cervo (Lugo).
He is under investigation following a complaint for alleged sexual assault filed «months» ago by the Ferrol presenter Paloma Lago.
The appointment of Villares, who succeeded Rosa Quintana, the then most veteran member of the Consello de la Xunta, along with Rueda, was interpreted in two ways: Rueda was promoting local leaders and also starting to build his own team, gradually changing faces and opting for profiles close to him.
Rueda had inherited the presidency of the regional government just a year before from the current leader of the PP at the national level, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and with it, his entire team, which he decided to maintain. The message was one of stability and continuity.
Therefore, when Feijóo included some of his collaborators who had continued in the regional government in his electoral lists for the general elections of 2023 and vacancies arose in the Xunta, Rueda was able to start shaping the profile with his signings. The chosen ones were Villares and Elena Rivo, from Ourense, who did not continue in the government formed by the Pontevedra native after winning the absolute majority in 2024.
EXTENSIVE LOCAL CAREER
In addition to his closeness to Rueda, with whom he has publicly shared cycling routes, one of the sports hobbies of the Galician president, Villares (Cervo, 1970) had a significant career in the local sphere with notable electoral success.
A graduate in Veterinary Medicine, between 1996 and 2007 he worked professionally as a veterinarian. A councilor for the PPdeG in Cervo since 1995, with governmental responsibilities since 1999 and as mayor since the municipal elections of 2007, he managed to revalidate four consecutive absolute majorities. He also served as first vice president of the Galician Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (Fegamp).
Two years after his appointment as Conselleiro and following a complaint that Lago filed «months» ago in a court in Ferrol, Villares has resigned from his position in a press conference that ended with an energetic applause from the members of his team at the Consellería, who supported him in the press room. He declared himself «absolutely innocent.»
FISHERIES POLICY
Heading an economically strategic area in Galicia such as fisheries policy, he has faced significant challenges, although his main ‘crisis’ so far was the issue of pellets, in a pre-election context where the opposition to Rueda made the arrival of plastics on the Galician coast one of their main talking points.
In that context, one of the quotes that marked Villares from a media standpoint originates, when asked about the dietary consequences, he once said that he did not eat «the digestive systems of the fish» where pellets could be lodged, although he pointed out that «anyone» can sometimes accidentally eat some plastic. «They enter where they enter and exit where they exit,» he said.
