A member of the Madrid council resigned this Thursday after, in a public meeting, he slapped three times the president of the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who accused him of violence.
Socialist councilor Daniel Viondi, after speaking in the gallery, approached the place where Martínez-Almeida (People’s Party, PP) was to hand him a document, and then punched him in the face three times.
According to the mayor, the councilor said the phrase “you are making a mistake” to him in a defiant tone, while touching his face with his palm.
“Mr. Viondi touched my face three times with a threatening tone,” he said at the plenary meeting of the Martinez-Almeida municipality, after asking to speak from the chairman of the meeting.
“You use violence in plenary sessions, Mr. Viondi, and I will not allow this. Never touch my face again. Never,” he added, asking the leadership of the Socialist Party (PSOE) to take action because “you cannot touch” a person like the councilor did.
Councilman Daniel Viondi continued to argue with the mayor after returning to his seat in plenary and was eventually ejected from the meeting for insubordination to the session chair.
The representative of the socialist group in the chamber of the Spanish capital, former minister Reyes Maroto, apologized to Martinez-Almeida before the plenary session.
PSOE Madrid leader Juan Lobato then announced Viondi’s resignation from the chamber on social media and also apologized to Martínez-Almeida.
“The party will make appropriate decisions,” he added.
The councilor himself eventually announced his resignation in a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter), and also apologized to the mayor.
“I apologize to Mr. Almeida for what happened. (…) It was a mistake that I deeply regret,” wrote Daniel Viondi.
The episode followed an intervention by Viondi, in which he argued that a place in the city’s area should be named after footballer Jenny Hermoso, who accused former Spanish federation president Luis Rubiales of giving him a non-consensual kiss in the World Cup final, which Spain won in Australia last August.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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