President of Valencia's Region Carlos Mazon gives a press conference to announce his resignation at Valencia's Palau de la Generalitat on November 3, 2025. Photo / Jose Jordan, AFP
President of Valencia's Region Carlos Mazon gives a press conference to announce his resignation at Valencia's Palau de la Generalitat on November 3, 2025. Photo / Jose Jordan, AFP
The heavily criticised leader of Spain’s Valencia region has announced his resignation after a year of pressure over his handling of 2024 floods, the country’s deadliest in decades.
But Carlos Mazón sparked fresh anger for the manner of his announcement, which triggered another round of recrimination within Spain’s political classover the disaster.
“The reality is that today I am the focus of criticism, noise, hatred and tension,” Mazón said in a televised address. “I can’t go on anymore.”
Mazón had for a year consistently rebuffed calls for his resignation after the October 29, 2024 catastrophe killed more than 230 people, swept away 130,000 vehicles and damaged thousands of homes.
His conservative-run regional administration – primarily responsible for the emergency response under Spain’s decentralised system – sent an alert to residents’ mobile phones when flooding had already started in some places.
“I know I made mistakes. I acknowledge them and I will live with them all my life,” he added, asking for “forgiveness”.
The leader of Spain's flood-hit Valencia region who has faced fierce scrutiny over his handling of the October 29, 2024, catastrophe that killed more than 230 people. Photo / Jose Jordan, AFP
‘Shameless’
In the town of Aldaia, one of the worst-hit municipalities in the eastern region, 22-year-old student David Genoves told AFP Mazón should have quit much sooner.
Monday’s announcement “was a manoeuvre, desperate, at the last minute. Also, I see it as him shifting the blame elsewhere”, Genoves said.
Retiree Agustin Cordoba, 62, agreed that the resignation came too late. “In my life, I have known no politician or person who is so shameless,” he said of Mazón.
Campaigners have regularly staged protests against Mazón that gathered tens of thousands of people, and polls showed a majority of Valencia residents wanted him out.
Last week, relatives of the victims shouted “murderer”, “coward” and “get out” at Mazón when he arrived for a state memorial service for the victims.
Rosa Alvarez, who heads an association representing flood victims, credited pressure from the protests for Mazón’s decision, telling Cadena SER radio: “His party didn’t make him resign.”
She told a later press conference in Madrid that the campaigners sought “prison for Mazón, obviously a trial is needed”.
But Mazón will remain a lawmaker in Valencia’s regional parliament, offering him protection from an ongoing criminal investigation into the handling of the floods.
The Socialists accused Mazón of “not taking on the appropriate legal responsibilities” by “sheltering” in the parliament, demanding early regional elections.
Around 1000 people rallied in the city of Valencia on Monday evening demanding elections and targeting Mazón, an AFP journalist saw.
Demonstrators chant slogans during a protest demanding for justice for the victims of last year's devastating floods in Valencia. Photo / Jose Jordan, AFP
‘Cynicism’
He is expected to be replaced as the regional leader by another member of his conservative Popular Party (PP).
Mazón had repeatedly argued his administration did not have the necessary information from state-run bodies to be able to warn people sooner.
“None of them (mistakes) were due to political calculation or bad faith,” he said on Monday, taking a swipe at the Socialist-led national Government for not helping sooner.
Analysts had said Mazón had become a burden for the PP’s national leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who had continued to back his ally.
“No national emergency depends on a single person. That idea is intolerably cynical, simplistic, typical of someone wanting to evade their own responsibilities,” Feijoo said on Monday.
