María Teófila Martínez Saiz (born 1948) is a Spanish politician. She was the mayor of

Cádiz Cádiz ( , , ) is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated fr ...

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

, from 1995 to 2015. Martínez is a member of the People's Party and member of the

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies () is the lower house of the , Spain's legislative branch, the upper house being the Senate of Spain, Senate. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. Congress has ...

of Spain since the 80's.

Career

An architect by profession, Martínez was elected as provincial

secretary-general Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

of the Popular Alliance of Cadiz in December 1982. From 1983 to 1987 she was a councilor of

El Puerto de Santa María El Puerto de Santa María (), locally known as El Puerto and historically in English as Port Saint Mary, is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain located on the banks of the Guadalete River in the province of Cádiz, Andalusia. , the c ...

. She has been mayor of Cadiz since 1995, and the most voted mayor of the provincial capitals of Spain in the municipal elections of 2003 and 2007 with about 60% of the vote. With the municipal elections of 2011 validates winning for the fifth time by an absolute majority. She has been a Member of the

since 1989 (except for the period 2000 to 2008 when she was in the Andalusian parliament as senator for two consecutive terms). She presided over the People's Party of Andalusia from 1999 to 2004 and served as its spokeswoman at the Commission of Public Works of the Congress of Deputies and Commissions Coordinator of the Popular Party in Congress. During her tenure as mayor, she authorized the dig of the railway passing through Cadiz, the upkeep of city's emblematic buildings, the development of idle shipyards, as well as the start of construction of the second bridge and conducting of Bicentennial of the Cortes of Cadiz, year in which commemorated the hundred years of the Constitution of Cadiz in 1812, the first Spanish constitution. Cadiz became in 2012 a Latin American Capital of Culture and hosted the 22nd

Ibero-American Summit The Ibero-American Summit, formally the Ibero-American Conference of Heads of State and Governments (, ), is a yearly meeting of the heads of government and state of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations of Europe and the Americas, as mem ...

. In early 2013, Teofila Martinez presented the proposal to boost the creation of the logistics platform in Southern Europe in the province of Cadiz, located between three continents (Europe, Africa and America) and located in a strategic axis of communication as is the Strait of Gibraltar. This proposal was supported by the Government of the nation, embodied with the presentation in the city of Cadiz in November 2013 national logistics strategy. Martínez was criticized by social networks when on 23 August 2013 she spoke to the press complaining about the views of users of social networks on the Spanish politicians and explaining her dismay at people asking social aid in the City argued that "there are people asking to eat and having a Twitter is costing them money". Social networks argued, among other things, that two years ago she suggested to install

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

free zones on several streets and squares of the city. On 13 September 2013 she apologized for her remarks saying that she recognizes that technology knows "the right thing" and argued that is not required to know the language of the new technologies. Following the

2015 Spanish local elections The 2015 Spanish local elections were held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect all 67,515 councillors in the 8,122 municipalities of Spain and all 1,040 seats in 38 provincial deputations. The elections were held simultaneously with regional elec ...

, Martínez was replaced by José María González Santos. In 2017, the Cadiz City Council had filed an investigation quarry against Martínez for her mishandling of funds directed at in 2009, which resulted City Council to lose . On 20 September 2021, Martínez, along with had attended a conference at the Port of Cadiz Bay.

References

External links