José Manuel Bermúdez was elected this Monday as the new mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife after the motion of censure presented by Coalición Canaria, the Popular Party and the non-attached councilor Evelyn Alonso - expelled by Ciudadanos - against the socialist Patricia Hernández, who lasted just over a year in office, prospered.
Bermúdez has the support of 14 councilors who give him an absolute majority in the City Council, while PSOE, Unidas Podemos and Cs are left with 13, and he regains the Mayor's Office after a year in opposition despite having won the last elections.
More than a hundred people have gathered at the doors of the City Council in support of Hernández with slogans such as "it is justice, we want Patricia", "a home run, this is it" or "Coalición, corruption".
In his speech, José Manuel Bermúdez pointed out that he promoted the motion of censure from "the illusion and commitment" to the city of Santa Cruz and with an "impeccable" trajectory, and wanted to make it clear that it is an initiative "fully legitimized" that responds to the "deficient" management of the government group throughout the last year.
Bermúdez indicated that the words of the former Cs councilor Juan Ramón Lazcano to motivate his resignation, last April, have "much to do" with this motion and justify it "fully", as they represent a "clear radiography" of Patricia Hernández's way of governing, whose way of doing things has made Santa Cruz "go backwards".
The new mayor pointed out that with the passing of the months, the government headed by the former mayor has meant a "chain of improvisations and occurrences, some bordering on the extravagant, making it impossible to govern with foundation, as the absence of initiatives has been added to a manifest inability to manage an important volume of works and services that were underway".
Regarding Patricia Hernández's statements that CC promoted this motion because they were "afraid that the rugs would be lifted", José Manuel Bermúdez stated that the new government group does not have to prove anything and guaranteed that his pulse will not tremble if he has to do so.
"We will act with legal rigor, with ethics and defending the general interest, without questioning the innocence of people until the courts rule," he remarked.
Bermúdez thanked the Popular Party and Evelyn Alonso for their confidence in the formalization of a government pact that, he said, responds to the general interest of all residents and is "the best of the possible"; a "good agreement" for the city that "will give stability" to the City Council in a situation in which it is time to face the economic and social crisis caused by covid-19, he added.
Hernández, who congratulated Bermúdez but did not hand over the baton of command to the new mayor, commented that the censure is due to the fact that CC felt her departure from the Mayor's Office "as an eviction" after so many years in which they "confused" the City Council with "the headquarters of their party".
She has criticized them for "believing they own" the consistory because they "need power" like "air to breathe" and pointed out that the censure seeks to keep the City Council away from the "murky records" and "misdeeds" of CC's management.
She has criticized Bermúdez's unfulfilled promises and announcements and the absence of an "alternative project" for the city, while lamenting that the motion of censure has been "plotted" "by zoom" during confinement.
She said that Bermúdez wanted to return "to his throne" and worked during the pandemic for himself. "They subject the municipality to a standstill at the worst moment," she added, criticizing that governability is placed in the hands "of the first defector" in the city's history and that the PP "betrays" the desire for change of its own voters.
"He has never faced someone powerful in his life"
Hernández also wondered if Evelyn Alonso "is compensated" for supporting the motion of censure for what she is going to receive and described "as an honor" working side by side with Matilde Zambudio (Cs).
In addition, she stressed that "the path" that must be taken is that of recovering the money from Las Teresitas when CC "had done nothing" because "it did not want to", the same with Sacyr, who knew that "it was plundering" Santa Cruz. "He has never faced someone powerful in his life," she pointed out.
The spokesperson for Ciudadanos (Cs), Matilde Zambudio, said she was "extremely worried" because the City Council "is going to be reduced to the clientelist politics of Coalición Canaria" with the support of the Popular Party and a "defector", and criticized that they have "hatched" this motion of censure during confinement "to regain power and continue doing and undoing as they please".
She also had words for her former colleague Evelyn Alonso, whom she accused of "lying", of whom she censured her "lack of coherence, responsibility and ethics" and to whom she asked what are "the 250,000 reasons" for supporting this motion of censure.
She also reminded her that she is "the first defector in the history of the municipality" and congratulated her because "it is the first time she is the first in something".
The spokesperson for the Popular Group, Guillermo Díaz Guerra, has defended the legitimacy of the motion of censure, which also adds more popular support, and stressed that although they ran in the elections to end the "hegemony" of CC, the current government has been a "disappointment" and a "huge mistake".
He said that they agree with CC on the "terrible" municipal management of Patricia Hernández, who has been "dragging the city's name through the mud" for a year instead of building a better city.
"They are specialists in destroying people", he indicated, with a "scoundrel" language and in which all means are used. "I have not seen it in my life, it is disgusting," he commented.
He stressed that Bermúdez has been "honest" and has earned his trust and highlighted that Hernández "has not known" how to maintain the majority. "They have let her fall," he commented, while lamenting that she has been recorded in private conversations.
An act "not very honorable", according to the PSOE
The spokesperson for Unidas Podemos, Ramón Trujillo, stated that this motion "is born vitiated" by "defection and distrust" and lamented that the support of the Popular Party brings with it "a government of bad managers".
He also criticized that Coalición Canaria tries to justify this motion of censure with a "defector" and presenting themselves as the "champions of efficiency and good management", when there are "so many examples of non-compliance".
José Ángel Martín, spokesperson for the Socialist Group, commented that the motion of censure "is not legitimate either in the moment or in the form", apart from the fact that it is supported "by the first defector councilor in the history of Santa Cruz".
He denied the "stagnation" of the capital compared to the "work" of the municipal government and valued that the money from Las Teresitas has been recovered in the face of the inaction of the previous Bermúdez government.
"In 13 months he cannot stand even one of his eight years of government", he told Bermúdez, attributing to him that the censure is an act "not very honorable" because it is based on a "defector" councilor.
The spokesperson for CC-PNC, Juan José Martínez, emphasized that the motion of censure is an initiative "as legitimate as it is justified" in the need to stop the "involution" of the municipality as a consequence of the "disastrous" action of the mayor and her team, and insisted that it is a "logical and necessary" motion against Patricia Hernández, "brilliant in her oratory but with a demagogic discourse, lacking in content, with lies and more false than an audit by Matilde Zambudio".
