The dissolution of the Marbella City Council on April 7, 2006, was an unprecedented move of the Spanish Government to put an end to the long-standing corruption in the city, which had taken the council near to its bankruptcy while many mayors and their collaborators had "earned" large amounts of unknown sourced-luxury.
Causes
Many sources track the start of widespread corruption to the first term of Mayor Jesús Gil, elected in 1991 with 65% of the vote and a 19-6 majority for his GIL party. His government promoted heavy urbanistic development throughout Marbella, revitalizing its hype amongst the world jet set and bringing an era of prosperity to the city. However, his open disregard for the Andalusian regulations and the still standing former urban plan made the Government of Andalusia start rejecting all his new plans. Moreover, he was soon accused of diverting public funds to his soccer club, Atlético Madrid, while international mafias greatly increased their activities in Marbella.
In the meantime, national parties the PP and PSOE seemed unable to convince voters of Gil's corruption, for he was returned in the 1995 election with the same result as in 1991; and even in the 1999 election, when the scandals had already started surfacing, he retained a 15-10 majority with 52% of the vote.
In 2002, Gil was jailed for public fund diversion to Atlético Madrid, and after his ban from public service, some proposed dissolving the whole council in response to the claims of deeply rooted corruption in Marbella, but José María Aznar's PP government was unwilling to use such a drastic reserve power for the first time in Spanish democracy against a council which would only serve one more year. On May 2, 2002, Deputy Mayor Julián Muñoz, already with some trials pending, replaced his boss as the city first officer.
The corruption charges continued taking down many GIL politicians and collaborators, but the Marbellians seemed adamant of this, and they backed the GIL new head Julián Muñoz with 47% of the vote in the 2003 election, still a majority of 15-12 due to the use of the D'Hondt method and the opposition fragmentation. However, the party was in turmoil and Muñoz proved unable to control the council: a severe floor crossing created more than four independent groups springing not only from the GIL but also from the PSOE and the Andalucist Party, and a vote of no confidence sacked the Mayor on August 13, 2003, putting Marisol Yagüe in his office barely three months after the election. Again, the PP government decided not to invoke the power of council dismissal to avoid PSOE and IU critics of authoritarianism.
Scandals were getting louder by the day, and on March 29 and 30, 2006, both Mayor Yagüe and Deputy Mayor Isabel García, along with urban development advisor Juan Antonio Roca and many councillors, were arrested on charges of public funds malversation, prevarication, bribery and traffic of influence. Second Deputy Mayor Tomás Reñones took office on April 1, but he already knew that the council was going to be dissolved. He tried to ease the situation putting all councillors' offices "at the disposition of superior institutions", but Manuel Chaves, the socialist president of Andalusia, declared that "the Andalusian Government was not a superior instance to the Marbellian Council", so they had no means to intervene but to advise the Spanish Government to dissolve the council.
Legal background
Both the Andalusian and the Spanish governments based their actions on the Local Regime Framework Act, which defines the powers of not only the cities, but also many Constitution-created institutions, such as the provincial governments. The act clearly specifies, on its article 61.1, that
The Council of Ministers, on its own initiative and having informed the Government Council of the correspondent Autonomous Community, or on advice of the latter, will be able to, with the approval of the Senate, issue a Royal Decree dissolving the local Corporations when their management actions represent a heavy prejudice to the general interest or a failure to fulfill their constitutional duties.