MADRID – Hailed as a flag-bearer of Spain's anti-lockdown movement, the chief of the country's capital region turned Madrid this year into a European exception, where bars, restaurants, museums and concert halls remained open even as contagion rates strained hospitals.
Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso's resistance to sweeping closures and preference for treating COVID-19 patients in cavernous venues have constantly pitched the 42-year-old conservative against Spain's left-wing ruling coalition.
The political strife, which has involved boasts, blame and lawsuits, has escalated in the run-up to a regional election on May 4. “I'm facing an exam,” Díaz Ayuso, the election frontrunner, told The Associated Press this week. “It’s like asking