and the Korean singer Kimera was kidnapped, focusing international media scrutiny on the city.
In 1991, the builder and president of Atlético Madrid, Jesús Gil y Gil was elected by a wide majority as mayor of Marbella for his own party, the Independent Liberal Group (GIL in Spanish), having promised to fight petty crime and the declining prestige associated with the region. He employed actor Sean Connery as an international spokesman for the city; Connery later ended this relationship after Gil used his image in an election campaign.
The city also experimented with extensive building activity under Gil's administration—critics complained that this construction was often performed without regard for the existing urban plan; consequently new development plans were suspended by the Andalusian government. Something of a maverick, Gil despised town-hall formalities, instead ruling from his office at the Club Financiero. Gil was strongly criticised by Spain's major parties, the (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the People's Party), but not enough voters were persuaded to oust him and Spanish celebrities continued to spend summers there. Gil's political party, GIL, extended to other Costa del Sol towns like Estepona and even across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish North African cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
This period resulted in a reappraisal of the city's finances but also brought investigations of corruption. Jesús Gil was finally forced to resign in 2002 after being jailed for diverting public funds for Atlético. He was succeeded by Julián Muñoz, a former waiter well known for being romantically involved with singer Isabel Pantoja; more than one hundred trials for corruption followed. Muñoz was overthrown by his own party which then elected Marisol Yagüe, a former secretary, as the new mayor. Muñoz and Gil took part in a scandalous debate on television where each accused the other of having robbed public funds.
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