Rita Maestre Fernández (born 1988) is a Spanish political scientist and politician. A member of the

Madrid City Council The City Council of Madrid () is the top-tier administrative and governing body of Madrid, the capital and biggest city of Spain. The city council is composed by three bodies: the mayor, who leads the city council and the executive branch of it; ...

since 2015, she served as Spokesperson of the municipal government board presided by

Manuela Carmena Manuela Carmena Castrillo (; born 9 February 1944) is a retired Spanish lawyer and judge who served as Mayor of Madrid from June 2015 to June 2019. She was a member of the General Council of the Judiciary. Biography Early life She was born o ...

from 2015 to 2019.

Biography

Born in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

on 13 April 1988, she grew up in the neighborhood of Ventas. She is daughter of civil servants, her father having worked for the Tax Agency and her mother for the City Council. Graduated in political science at the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

( UCM) she later took post-graduate studies in

International Economy International political economy (IPE) is the study of how politics shapes the global economy and how the global economy shapes politics. A key focus in IPE is on the power of different actors such as nation states, international organizations and ...

. She was a founder of the ''Juventud sin Futuro'' group in 2011 and took part in the 15-M protests. A collaborator in LaTuerka TV show, she joined Podemos, helping in the party campaign for the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties field ...

. Following the October 2014 Podemos meeting in Vistalegre, Maestre became a member of the party's ''Citizen Council'' in the Constituent Assembly celebrated a month later. She ran 5th in the

Ahora Madrid Ahora Madrid () was a citizen platform of popular unity, formed as an ''instrumental party without organic internal life'', in order to stand for the municipal elections of 2015 in the city of Madrid. For this project, '' Ganemos Madrid'', ...

list for the May 2015 Madrid municipal election, being elected to the City Council. As

was invested as the new Mayor on 13 June, Maestre was included in the municipal government board (''Junta de Gobierno'') assuming the government area of "Spokeswomanship, Coordination of the Government Board and Relations with the Plenary". She also briefly held the councillery-presidency of the Salamanca district. Days after assuming office, she was charged with a transgression of "offense to religious feelings" due to her participation in a 2011 pro-laicist protest in the chapel of the UCM Faculty of Psychology, for which she was initially sentenced to pay 4,320 € in March 2016, ultimately being fully acquitted in December 2016 after appealing to a higher judicial instance. Maestre stood as challenger to the leadership of the regional organization of Podemos in the

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities and 50 provinces of Spain, provinces of Spain. It is located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and Meseta Central, Central Plateau (); its capital and largest munici ...

. Considered linked to the ' ''errejonista''' faction, her candidature "Adelante Podemos" was beaten by Ramón Espinar's "Juntas Podemos" in the November 2016 primary election. Following the renouncement of Maestre and other 5 councillors members of Podemos and also members of the municipal group of

to run in the Podemos process to select the candidates to the 2019 municipal election (pending potential mergings into a wider candidature), preferring to directly do it instead in the

Más Madrid Más Madrid () is a progressive regional political party in Spain co-founded by Manuela Carmena and Iñigo Errejon. Its primary strength is located in the city of Madrid. It promotes green politics, having cooperated with like-minded parties su ...

platform around Carmena, all 6 councillors' individual memberships to Podemos were suspended in a precautionary basis in November 2018 after a request by

Julio Rodríguez Julio Yamel Rodríguez (born December 29, 2000), nicknamed "J-Rod", is a Dominican professional baseball center fielder for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB). He signed with the Mariners as an international free agent in 2017 a ...

. She ran 3rd in the

list for the May 2019 Madrid municipal election, being elected to the City Council. Even though

won the elections, Carmena could not continue as mayor of the capital of Spain due to a pact to form a coalition government made by the People’s Party,

Citizens Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; ...

and Vox. After Carmena left public life, primaries took place so as to choose the spokesperson of

in the City Council. She won the primaries to

Marta Higueras Marta María Higueras Garrobo (born 1964) is a Spanish criminal mediator, linked to the judicial sector from the start of her career. From 2015 to 2019, she served as First Deputy Mayor of Madrid and a councillor in the Department of Equality, Soc ...

, becoming the leader of the opposition to government of the conservative mayor

José Luis Martínez-Almeida José Luis Martínez-Almeida Navasqüés (born 17 April 1975) is a Spanish state lawyer and politician. A member of the People's Party (PP), he has been a member of the Madrid City Council since 2015 and has been Mayor of Madrid since 2019. ...

. In May 2023 Madrid municipal election she ran as candidate of

for mayor of Madrid.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maestre, Rita Madrid city councillors (2015–2019) Podemos (Spanish political party) politicians 1988 births Living people Madrid city councillors (2019–2023) Madrid city councillors (2023–2027) Complutense University of Madrid alumni