Luis Miguel Salvador García (born 17 April 1963) is a Spanish politician of the
Citizens party. He was mayor of
Granada from 2019 to 2021, and was in the
Congress of Deputies from 2016 to 2019. Before switching parties in 2013, he was in the
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and was in the
Senate from 2004 to 2011.
Biography
Born in
Córdoba, Salvador graduated in Political Science and Administration at the
University of Granada.[1] He later qualified as an international electoral observer at the
Diplomatic School of Spain, and was Head of the Cabinet in the Provincial Deputation of Granada.[2]
In the
2015 local elections, Salvador campaigned to be mayor of Granada. He ordered the Citizens members in the city hall to abstain during the investiture of
People's Party (PP) incumbent
José Torres Hurtado, having turned down the offer to join him in government.[5] At the end of that year, he returned to national politics,
being elected to the
Congress of Deputies.[6]
In May 2019, during his campaign to be mayor of Granada, Salvador attracted attention for a post on his website which used analysis from a follower of the
pseudoscience of
morphopsychology to claim that his cranial features corresponded with positive attributes.[7] Having won only four of 27 seats in the city hall, he was nonetheless made mayor in June after support from the PP (7) and
Vox (3).[8] He became one of first seven mayors from his party in medium-sized cities, including the
Mayor-President of Melilla;[9] Granada was the largest of those cities.[10]
In December 2020, Salvador attacked the
Ministry of the Interior for having transferred some African migrants from the
Canary Islands to Granada.[11] Other parties in Granada labelled his rhetoric xenophobic.[12][13]
After the PP withdrew their support in him, Salvador resigned on 2 July 2021. He then supported his PSOE predecessor
Francisco Cuenca.[10] He remained in Cuenca's government, as head of Estrategía 2031, the campaign to earn Granada the title of
European Capital of Culture for that year.[14]