Valencia councillor caught shopping for wine online during flood relief meeting

29 January 2025 , 20:50

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Valencia councillor caught shopping for wine online during flood relief meeting

José Marí Olano says sorry after cameras appear to capture him scrolling through bottles of wines and spirits.

A People’s party (PP) politician in the city of Valencia has apologised after cameras appeared to capture him shopping online for wine and spirits as his fellow city councillors debated additional funding for areas affected by October’s deadly floods.

Nearly three months after flash floods ravaged part of the Valencia region, turning streets into rivers, sweeping away cars and killing more than 220 people, many continue to reel from the worst natural disaster to hit Spain this century.

In the city of Valencia, as part of Tuesday’s plenary session, councillors weighed a proposal to set aside an additional €25m (£21m) to help areas where people were still struggling to recover.

Instead the focus ended up on José Marí Olano, after the councillor was caught on the session’s livestream appearing to scroll through bottles of wines and spirits and add them to his online basket, according to the news site eldiario.es.

Opposition politicians reacted with fury. “Buying wine while the reconstruction of the affected areas is being debated is one of the saddest things I have ever seen in politics in my life,” said Papi Robles of the leftwing Compromís coalition.

Olano was the latest PP politician in Valencia to come under fire. Since the floods swept through Valencia, tens of thousands of people have taken to streets across the region to call for the resignation of Carlos Mazón after it emerged the regional president had taken a three-hour lunch on the same day that the flood waters were rising.

As images of Olano’s online shopping jaunt began to make the rounds on social media, the politician stood up in the plenary to acknowledge what he described as his “incorrect” conduct.

He said: “I ask to address the floor to apologise publicly to all of you and the citizens, whom we all represent.”

Thomas Brown