Mayor of Algarrobo to step down to take up senior post in Andalusian regional government

Politics

Natacha Rivas is to be appointed director-general for fisheries, aquaculture and the blue economy

Antonio M. Romero

Málaga

The mayor of Algarrobo, Natacha Rivas, is set to step down from the role in the eastern Costa del Sol town on Tuesday 21 July ... to begin a new role at the Andalusian regional government.

Rivas has been appointed director-general for the department of agriculture, fisheries, water and rural development, which is headed by Ramón Fernández-Pacheco from Almeria.

Rivas has been mayor of Algarrobo for eleven years, across two terms and with two different parties. She first took office in 2007 as a member of the Andalusian Party (PA), which she left in 2014 after being recruited by the then provincial president of the Partido Popular (PP), Elías Bendodo.

The following year she stood as a candidate but failed to be elected, as she did in 2019. It was in 2023 that she was re-elected by an absolute majority to the post she is now leaving.

Sources within the PP said that the appointment of Natacha Rivas to the new regional post reflects “the importance, for Juanma Moreno’s Andalusian government, of both the fishing sector and the Axarquía, home to the port of Caleta de Vélez, the province’s main fishing port and one of the most important in Andalucía”.

Substitute

Natacha Rivas Campos (Barcelona, 1977) holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Malaga, as well as a Master’s degree in Mathematics. Before entering politics, she worked as a sales representative at DKV Seguros and Eterna S.A. and taught mathematics through private tuition at pupils’ homes and in academies for two years.

Her rise to the political forefront came in 2007 when she was elected mayor of Algarrobo – she was the first woman to hold this office in the town. Between 2011 and 2014, she served as vice-president of the Mancomunidad association of town halls of the Costa del Sol and Axarquía.

In 2015, an alliance between the socialist PSOE and an independent party ousted her as mayor. Halfway through that municipal term, she was appointed technical adviser to the PP group on the provincial government the Diputación de Málaga, a role she held until 2019. I

n the same year she took charge of the areas of social innovation and tackling depopulation for the Diputación where she was also appointed second vice-president. In 2023, she secured an absolute majority as mayor after winning the local elections in Algarrobo.

Sources have not yet confirmed who the new mayor will be. The current deputy mayor is Sergio Cotilla.