Within seven days, democracy will once again deploy its stall of methacrylate ballot boxes and polling stations in the 179 municipalities that draw the Community of Madrid as a face of Bélmez. A democracy that, every four years (sometimes even less), fits in a ballot paper and an envelope that barely weigh 19 grams; As the astronaut said, a small gesture of the wrist for the man, a great gesture for the future of all the political parties that, until Friday, will soak every vote, in every district, as if it were the last drop of water in the electoral ocean. So, it's time to take out the calculator and do the math.

Of those elections to the Assembly of Madrid in May 21, there was a town where Vox pulverized all records: Garganta de los Montes. Rooted in the Sierra Norte, it is camouflaged among the rocks of the mountain with its houses of the color of the earth, its cobbled floors, its church of the fifteenth century tearing the last cold of spring. With just 400 inhabitants -407 according to the last census, Arturo, the justice of the peace, will later confess, this municipal term became a symbol for the party of Santiago Abascal two years ago, when Vox obtained 24.2% of the votes. This percentage was the highest reached by Rocío Monasterio's list in the entire Community of Madrid. It was followed by Navas del Rey, with 18.9% and Ambite, with 17.3%.

Despite the song of Julio Iglesias, life does not remain the same in Garganta de los Montes. In the main square of the town, guarded by the church and the City Hall, several electoral posters invite the neighbors to vote for Jaime Carretero, candidate of the Popular Party to the municipal. Next Sunday, Carretero aspires to become the next mayor of the town "for the exciting project of Ayuso". And yet, two years ago he was the great supporter of the success of Monasterio in this small mountain town. We asked him about his acronym change. "I was the coordinator of Vox in the Garganta de los Montes during the previous regional elections, and I campaigned for Rocío Monasterio. The party acknowledged my success at the polls, but from then on the conditions changed. They demanded that both I and the rest of the candidates I had on the lists in the next elections should be affiliated with their acronym. But this is not like in Madrid, the capital, where there is a very large level of affiliation. Here, in Garganta de los Montes, we were only two affiliates. It's very hard to get people and very easy to be singled out, so I said no. His response was to send me paratroopers, that is, external candidates, from outside the village. But I don't drink with that; It has to be people from here, who know the reality of the neighbors. So I refused to follow his doctrine."

Pedro and Arturo, two 'veterans'.

After Carretero broke the deck, the game is very different next Sunday, as in an electoral Game of Thrones designed by the best team of writers. Vox will attend the municipal and regional elections with paratrooper candidates that nobody knows – they have barely presented themselves to the neighbors one afternoon with an information table – and its former coordinator aspires to become mayor under the acronym of the PP. "This sewer is clogged, thank goodness it hasn't rained," says Carretero as we cross the main square towards City Hall. On the way, he greets the early bird neighbors. "I'm going to buy the bread," announces a woman with the cloth bag under her arm along the street of the Mill. "Now it's still early, but at noon, with the sun, they will go out to take some vitamin D," warns Carretero.

Pedro and Arturo, the justice of the peace, are already veterans and have seen him grow. They are also the symbol of that rural Spain that is becoming increasingly empty and older. It's cold.

Are you going to vote for him on Sunday? -We asked cheekily.

"To whom, to this madman?" -jokes Pedro. "I've known him since I was a kid. Although he took me more with his father. I don't even know when the elections are. It happens to me like with football matches, which I don't pay any attention to. But hey, we'll have to go, right?

Before arriving at school, we pass in front of the candidate's house. It is made of limestone, like all the others in Garganta de los Montes, evoking the centuries-old lifestyle of the Lozoya Valley. "Do you live alone, married, as a couple, with children?" we asked. "I'm single. I have a construction and cattle company, so I don't have time to devote to couples or stories... for now." A few meters away, he points to his tractor. Further down, we arrive at the Aulas de Garganta de los Montes, which depend on the Rural Grouped School of Lozoya. Here, 12 children between the ages of 5 and 12 study together. Another example of depopulation in Spain that has nothing to do with provincial capitals. As Carretero enters to greet his nephew, Silvia, the teacher, explains: "The school is divine, eh? We have everything. And it is beautiful how they live with each other, how the adults help the little ones... The other day I was explaining to an older man a rather complicated math thing, and a five-year-old girl who is very alive was looking at us, paying close attention. He was trying to find out! You don't know how fast they wake up."

One of the classrooms of the school.

It is not difficult to see the 12 students making incursions around the town, where the Plaza del Rey Juan Carlos I, adjacent to the Plaza de la Reina Sofía, has just been remodeled. The emeritus, together for centuries of centuries even in the street of this town that every weekend is filled with visitors. Thus, agrotourism has become one of the economic engines of the Sierra de Guadarrama. Four bars/restaurants and two rural hotels underpin the offer of Garganta de los Montes.

Victoria is 91 years old. It is, perhaps, the oldest neighbor called to the polls next Sunday. He has lost count of the times he voted, for one or the other, in this crazy world that he no longer recognizes. "I've had Swiss cows," he explains. "And he milked them with fists." And he still has the brio to duel the popular candidate: "I will vote for the one who puts me a discotheque".

And it is that Garganta de los Montes is still a town of cattle weight. At the end of a stony and difficult road, Rosa and her husband have a plot of land with some chickens and a dozen sheep. Braying is heard in the distance. "Yes, there are donkeys. Four-legged, but we also have them with two legs, we do not deprive ourselves of anything, "laughs Rosa as she feeds her sheep. Back in town, while her husband fixes the roof of the house, Carretero notices: "All this block is hers, who is the head of the town."

"Yes, but I've done it with this one," Rosa replies, pointing to her lower back. -Working and working. Have you seen how I have the breba fig tree?

Rosa and Victoria, 91 years old.

It is already noon in Garganta de los Montes. The wind of Guadarrama intensifies somewhat, not much either. It's time to talk about what's important. If his neighbors give him confidence at the polls next Sunday, what will be Carretero's guidelines as mayor?

"This morning we have just announced the reduction of the IBI to all the neighbors who are registered in the town. We are going to promote the Unwanted Loneliness program, which in a town with such a strong exodus and aging, is very necessary. There are many older people who need a person to call them, to pay attention to them, to ask them how they are. We are going to open a toy library so that, for two or three hours a day, parents can have time for themselves, without children. And we want to build a municipal swimming pool. This is one of our star bets. And more in a town like this, where winters are so sad, where it gets dark at five in the afternoon and from that time there is nothing to do. Thus, we will put another stone against that rural exodus that little by little is killing us and pushing us to disappear."

A car passes by. "Look, my socialist adversary," Carretero says as he waves at him. "But we get along, huh? More or less we all know what everyone is voting for. One year you may like what the PSOE proposes and the next what the PP proposes. And then you have to fulfill that promise, because if not everything is in water of borage. In the end, the acronyms, here, are not so important."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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