The small town of Villalazán (254 inhabitants) is accessed by a national highway surrounded by cultivated fields.
From the capital of the province, Zamora, the journey is barely 15 minutes.
A route that, in the opposite direction, Juan del Canto completed every day by bus to attend the institute and finish his Baccalaureate studies.
It was the year 2019. In the last days of that course, on May 26, he participated in the municipal elections as a PP candidate.
With a program focused on combating depopulation, he won the leadership baton at just 19 years old by a narrow margin of 15 votes against the previous mayor, who had been in office for three decades.
“We needed a change.
And a project focused on young people and on reviving the town.
This was dead."
Remember today the youngest of the mayors who are running for re-election on 28-M.
In these four years he has completed a training cycle in Business Administration, has faced the pandemic at the head of the City Council and has pushed forward.
When Del Canto assumed the reins of Villalazán, he transferred to his teachers that, on occasions, he would have to be absent from class due to calls or meetings related to town chores.
At first, everything in municipal politics was alien to him.
He got ahead thanks to the veteran secretary of the City Council: she explained the administrative procedures, helped him conduct the plenary sessions... he was also advised by other popular councilors from nearby towns.
“In the end, the last responsibility belongs to the mayor.
If a grant is lost or something is lost, it is my responsibility ”, he remarks.
The young man now speaks, at 23 years old and with a mandate behind him, with absolute ease in matters related to local management.
And he knows the red tape by heart.
Juan del Canto and Jaime Gutiérrez were the youngest mayors to take office in Spain in 2019, according to data provided by the main parties.
Both were born in the year 2000, although Del Canto is a bit older when he turns in January.
Gutiérrez, councilor for the PSOE of Arroyo de las Fraguas (23 inhabitants, Guadalajara), will not repeat 28-M on the socialist lists.
Both are ediles without exclusive dedication and do not receive any remuneration.
In the case of Del Canto, he intends to forge his life in Villalazán, and his involvement as mayor, he assures, is total in order to keep the municipality afloat.
"Look, I could do just this if I wanted to," says the twenty-something while confirming by phone, with the secretary of the Consistory, the call for the municipal plenary session.
But he does not want to limit himself to calling plenary sessions and signing documents.
“It's up to you to get more or less involved,” he adds.
"It comes from his race," says his grandfather, Antonio Sevillano, 92 years old.
Del Canto's paternal great-grandfather was the last Republican mayor of Villalazán, "of the left";
his maternal, councilor with the dictatorship.
His parents "are from the right," explains Del Canto himself.
He ended up in the Popular Party and, like most of the town, his family is dedicated to agriculture and livestock: "Always looking at the sky," Sevillano sighs under a blazing sun at the end of April.
Del Canto combines the occupations of the mayor's office with work in his parents' agricultural company.
His hobbies are the countryside and horses.
He watches series on Netflix and barely reads.
“Only the Official Gazette of the Province and the newspaper
La Opinión de Zamora
”, he acknowledges.
A neighbor from Villalazán buys cleaning products in a street vendor business. Emilio Fraile
In Villalazán there are no shops.
Instead, street vendors come periodically to supply the neighbors.
It is Thursday for the sale of cleaning products and the van that comes once a month from Zamora occupies a good part of the square.
Up there the villalacinos come in a constant movement for mops, buckets, cloths... Among the clients is Elena González, who affirms that she will vote for Del Canto on May 28.
“It puts interest.
She shows that she likes him and he gets along well.
It is better that he is so young, ”says the 64-year-old woman.
Meanwhile, the mayor does not stop responding to requests from the neighbors on one matter or another, from completing some documents to looking for the keys to the hostel for some tourists.
A few meters below, a dozen municipal workers are busy taking care of the gardens.
They got the job through a regional program that the alderman applied for.
“At first, we did think that Juan was young to be mayor.
But it has been a joy, he has raised the town, ”says Marta Espinosa, 34, a beneficiary of the project.
The town has lost 21% of its population in the last decade, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Juan del Canto (center), in one of the town's bars, together with municipal workers. Emilio Fraile
In Spain there are other young mayors in their twenties.
This is the case of Juan Carlos García, 24-year-old councilor for Podemos de Fuentecantos (pop. 67, Soria);
o Jordi Forné, mayor of ERC de Alfara (359 registered, Tarragona), born in 1996. In recent days, a video of the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, together with the PP candidate for mayor of Zumárraga (9,636 residents, Gipuzkoa), Jon Echeverría, 18, has generated controversy on social networks precisely because of his extraordinary youth.
In one of the two bars in Villalazán, the Avenida restaurant, its owner reflects on Del Canto's maturity.
“You have to give everyone a chance.
If they always ask you for experience, as happens in many jobs, you can never do it,” says Sebastián Vaquero, 59.
“He has helped us in everything he could.
Also during the covid ”, underlines the hotelier, who will vote for the young mayor without looking at the acronym of the PP: “In the towns, the person matters”.
In the 2019 elections, the town was practically divided: 127 residents voted for the PP and 112 supported Ahora Decide, the party of the previous mayoress, who had previously held the mayoralty with the PSOE for almost three decades.
But, four years later, Now Decide is no longer running for the elections, and during a whole day in the town it is difficult to find a neighbor who is dissatisfied with Del Canto's management.
“Youth is with him.
He lost two years due to the pandemic.
He has to keep fighting so that people keep staying, ”says Juan Carlos, 55 years old.
All those consulted assure that he will vote for him in the next municipal elections, in which, on the other hand, he will hardly have a rival.
There is only one other candidate
The councilor of Ahora Decide Alcides Marcos, in front of his house. Emilio Fraile
Who already anticipates that he will not support Del Canto is one of the three councilors of Ahora Decide, Alcides Marcos, 71, due to ideological differences.
"I do not like it.
It is true that he has had ideas, but we leave the City Council with full coffers, ”says this Post Office official, already retired, at the door of his house.
In this first term, Mayor Del Canto has promoted works in several streets, built a new treatment plant to clean up polluted water —"the first big problem" he faced— and has designed an almost uninterrupted calendar of leisure and cultural activities. for young and old.
"He has created brotherhood", several neighbors agree, with different words.
On May 28, it will be examined again.
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