The president annuls Martínez's replacement and appoints Cecchi as substitute

The president of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas Lara, nullified the appointment of Rafael Martínez Peñalver Mateos as acting president and appointed counselor Nicola Cecchi Bissoni to the position. The decision is published in decree 719 of the Official Gazette of the City of Ceuta (BOCCE) no. 6,665, dated October 30, 2026, the same issue in which decree 720 appears, attributing the acting Presidency to Kissy Chandiramani Ramesh due to a new absence of the holder.

The framework is article 5.5 of the Regulations of the Government and Administrative Services of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, which regulates the substitution of the president, and article 14 of Organic Law 1/1995, of March 13, of the Statute of Autonomy of Ceuta, which empowers the president to issue decrees regarding organization. Both decrees invoke these same powers and order their publication in the BOCCE.

Decree 719, signed on October 24, 2026, by the president and the general secretary, María Dolores Pastilla Gómez, justifies the change on the grounds that “for scheduling reasons” the appointed counselor could not assume the acting presidency. The sequence recorded in the text itself is as follows:

• On October 22, a resolution was signed designating Rafael Martínez Peñalver Mateos, counselor of Urban Planning and Transport, as substitute for the president from 08:30 hours on the 24th until the return of the holder.
• That same decree 716, also published in BOCCE no. 6,665, designated him “Acting Pres.” from October 24 at 08:30 hours.
• On October 24, decree 719 nullifies the resolution of the 22nd and instead designates the counselor of Commerce, Tourism, Employment and Sport, Nicola Cecchi Bissoni.

A date error in the published text

Decree 719 contains a detectable inconsistency in its second point: it sets the substitution of Nicola Cecchi Bissoni “from June 24 from 08:30 hours and until my return,” while the rest of the articles and the annulled decree refer to October 24. The president’s absence had been announced for “the coming October 24, starting at 08:30 hours.”

This contradiction is added to the coexistence, in a single issue of the gazette, of two decrees with the same factual premise and different designated signatories, both under the formula of the holder’s absence and with an identical start time.

Chandiramani assumes the Presidency on October 26

Decree 720, also signed by the president and the general secretary and dated October 24, appoints Kissy Chandiramani Ramesh, second vice president of the Government and counselor for Finance, Economic Transition and Digital Transformation, as Acting President from October 26 at 10:50 hours until the return of the incumbent. This is a second absence in just two days, processed with the same procedure and published in the same bulletin.

Chandiramani had already served as Acting President at the beginning of October: BOCCE no. 6,663, of October 23, 2026, records her appointment from October 11 at 08:30 hours. In the final stretch of September and early October, the position fell to the first vice president, Alejandro Ramírez Hurtado, according to the decrees published in numbers 6,655 and 6,659.

Continuity in the rest of the activity

Despite the annulled relief, Rafael Martínez Peñalver Mateos maintains his ordinary activity in the same issue of the bulletin: decree 724 from his department, dated October 26, approves the regulatory bases for subsidies for the modernization of the Autotaxi and Eurotaxi fleet of the City of Ceuta for 2026, with a maximum allocation of 75,402.76 euros funded by PROCESA. Resolutions 725 and 726 further identify him as the president of the board of directors of AMGEVICESA.

The episode leaves three different appointments to cover two absences of the president in less than a week and a correction decree published alongside the corrected decree, which affects the traceability of who holds the highest representation of the City at any given moment. For readers and for municipal legal services, the BOCCE of October 30 is the official reference to certify the tenure of the Acting Presidency between October 24 and October 26, 2026.

Source: Official Bulletin of the City of Ceuta, no. 6,665, October 30, 2026, section I (Authorities and Personnel), pp. 3740-3744 (official reference: decrees 716, 719 and 720).