PP and the far-right Vox hang the LGTBI flag in Toledo and then vote down a motion of support for the collective

The Toledo City Council has once again placed the LGTBI flag on its balcony after three years without doing so, but the image has ended in another spat between the Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox. The flag went ahead after the deputy mayor, Inés Cañizares, from the far-right Vox, presided over the Board of Spokespersons in the absence of the mayor, Carlos Velázquez, and submitted the decision to a weighted vote.

The move broke the criterion that, according to the PP, had been functioning since the beginning of the mandate. The Popular Party defended that any symbol on the facade of the City Hall should be approved unanimously among the groups. Cañizares denies it and maintains that she merely applied the municipal regulations. The result was striking, as the PP voted in favor along with the PSOE and IU-Podemos, Vox maintained its usual rejection of the flag, but the decision was unblocked.

The controversy continued this Friday in the plenary session. PP and the far-right Vox voted together against a motion presented by PSOE and IU-Podemos in support of the LGTBI collective, with measures of collaboration with associations, awareness, and defense of equality. The local government justified its rejection by alleging that many of these actions are already carried out by the City Council. The opposition accuses the mayor of having maintained a political excuse for three years to avoid the flag and of now placing a flag that is too small, almost as a minimal gesture.

Cañizares defended in the plenary session that Vox rejects the use of flags that represent “specific causes or movements” and reiterated that the only flag that, in her opinion, represents everyone is that of Spain. From the PSOE, councilor Pedro Jesús López demanded that the flag stop being “a shell game” between the two government partners. IU-Podemos also criticized that the visibility of the collective depends each year on an internal negotiation between PP and Vox.

The case once again portrays the tension of municipal governments shared between the right and the far-right. The PP tries to appear as an institutional guarantor of equality, but remains conditioned by a partner who turns the symbols of Pride into a cultural battle. In Toledo, the flag is already on the balcony. Political support for the collective, however, has been left out of the agreement.

Talavera approves the flag with the PP abstaining and Vox against

The discussion also reached Talavera de la Reina this Friday, the other major City Council in the province. There, the plenary approved a PSOE motion to place the rainbow flag on the Town Hall for Pride. The PP abstained and the far-right Vox voted against, although the agreement went ahead.

The session left another political photo. While the popular party avoided blocking the LGTBI flag, they did support a Vox motion on “national priority” in access to aid, public services, and housing. The contrast once again places the PP in an uncomfortable position in Castilla-La Mancha, caught between gestures of institutional respect and the ideological demands of its far-right partner.