Comment by gerardvivancos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gerardvivancos | Hacker News Reader

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I think my non-native English prevents me from fully understanding your question, but I'd say in general terms what is described in the article is what happened:

- Party A takes the council 4 years ago

- Party A implements the low emissions zone

- Party B goes into elections campaign championing a reverse of the LEZ. The quote about they saying pollution and jams are part of the city's identity is true.

- Party B does not win the election but, because of how the system works, they could take the council by joining forces with other parties (who were also against the LEZ)

- If last point indeed happens, then they will revert the LZE

Actually, it is very possible that the LZE cannot be reverted because of EU's restrictions and fines for pollution quotas. Some media that are sided to Party B and were very critical of Party A and the LZE are now changing headlines to blame EU for the LZE, in what looks like a damage control operation now that they realise the possibility of their promise being not able to be fulfilled.

Source: I live somewhere some consider is Spain and some not.

Source: I live somewhere some consider is Spain and some not.

Gibraltar?

In Spain, there are multiple things GP could be referring to. Many people in Catalonia consider themselves to not be part of Spain. This could also apply to País Vasco, a.k.a. Basque Country.

About Basque Country:

- New Poll shows rising number of Basque Country residents want to remain in Spain [1]

- Only 26.9% of Basques want independence from Spain (2017) [2]

- 23% of Basques want independence (2019) [3]

[1] https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2018/12/07/new-poll-shows-ris...

[2] https://elpais.com/politica/2017/06/23/actualidad/1498213521...

[3] https://www.lavanguardia.com/local/paisvasco/20190412/461599...

LOL, nobody considers Gibraltar as Spain.

Source: I was born somewhere some consider is Spain and some not.

and do you know WHY they want to reverse the LEZ? are there any real reasons further than the opposing party implemented it so I must be against it?

Car-centric mindset. Some people it's their birthright to drive anywhere and park their cars for free in front of the place.

> Party B does not win the election but, because of how the system works, they could take the council by joining forces with other parties (who were also against the LEZ)

Isn't that how democracy works? I know that the system maybe could be improved but that's how the game is. In fact, the current Prime Minister started its government the same way.

People hated the LEZ. Things were going well, more or less, for Party A until they implemented it. They made the huge mistake of implementing the LEZ right before the election and they got rightly sacked. The council should work for its citizens. This is just democracy at work.

Why did people hate the LEZ in your opinion?

EDIT: Article says “City centre residents are happy with the LEZ “

It's probably residents far from the city center that hate the LEZ. Most residents in the center would likely prefer the whole center to be closed to cars, as public transportation is quite good there.

Notice that the politician in question is not a candidate for mayor of the city, it's the candidate governor of the whole region around the city.

> Most residents in the center would likely prefer the whole center to be closed to cars, as public transportation is quite good there.

Are you speaking specifically about residents from Madrid center or just generic city center residents?

They wanted to be able to use their cars, obviously. Why else?

you have a weird definition of democracy if you think that the councils should do whatever their citizens want as a majority.

thousands of people are dying in big cities from pollution and the local government should take unpopular actions to tackle climate change. of course nobody wants to be affected in any way by climate change, they want other people to do it.

>you have a weird definition of democracy if you think that the councils should do whatever their citizens want as a majority.

How is that a "weird definition of democracy"? That's literally what democracy means!

Yes, if a majority of people want policies which result in them dying by the thousands from pollution, then in a democratic system, that's what you have to give them. If the politicians do something highly unpopular, even though it's for the good of the society, they get voted out (assuming there's competing politicians who promise to give the people what they want). That's how democracy works. This is why democratic systems don't work very well when the populace is uneducated and stupid.

democracy doesn't mean that the majority do what they want. they can't violate the rights of minorities. even from ancient Greece from the first democracies these issues were taken into account.

That interpretation is absolutely wrong. The current mayor lost 2 crucial seats that undermined her re-election, 1 was due to the internal feuds in her own leftist coalition (about 40k votes) and at least another seat from the center-left who lost votes to the liberals and even the far-right in their own strongholds.

All of that happened in very low income neighborhoods that are not significantly impacted by the LEZ and outside the M30. In fact, she even got a small but meaningful vote boost from LEZ residents.

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