The crisis of the Popular Party of Lanzarote had been an open secret for years. Until now, among the popular people on the island, the same mantra was repeated over and over again, and that is that despite the discontent and internal tensions, Astrid Pérez's power was unquestionable. A reality that completely cracked at the beginning of the week, when the regional Executive decided to remove her from the leadership of the PP on the island after eighteen years and call for a caretaker committee to change the course of the political formation.
Astrid Pérez came to the Presidency of the Popular Party in Lanzarote in November 2008. Precisely, her mandate began as a turning point to an internal crisis initiated in 2005 that came to light when the then popular president on the island Alejandro Díaz decided to break the pacts with the Party of Independents of Lanzarote (PIL) and Coalición Canaria to forge a failed agreement with the PSOE.
That decision generated a rupture in the conservative formation and began a turbulent three-year period under a caretaker committee. Astrid Pérez then arrived to change the party's course. Before that, she had already been the general secretary of the PP in Lanzarote.
In 2008, Pérez overcame the candidate proposed by the then president of the Canary Islands Popular Party, José Manuel Soria, who had supported the candidacy of Yolanda Perdomo, manager of Promotur. With the party's support, Pérez proposed to set aside "personalism" to build a new PP.
A law graduate and with a political career that began in the late 90s. Pérez had been at the head of the Popular Party of Lanzarote for eighteen years until this Wednesday. While she will continue at the head of the Presidency of the Parliament of the Canary Islands until the end of the legislature.
Before reaching the party leadership in 2008, she had already been the Minister of Finance of the Cabildo de Lanzarote between 2003 and 2005. Then, she combined her organic position in the island's PP with various responsibilities. Between 2009 and 2012 she was the CEO of the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism and between 2011 and 2012 also vice-president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote.
In addition to her political positions in Lanzarote, she made the leap to the regional chamber in 2011, when she was chosen as a deputy in the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
Throughout the past term, Pérez also became the mayor of Arrecife, the most populated city in Lanzarote and the island's capital. Although she ran again as a candidate in the city and was able to govern after an agreement with Coalición Canaria, she decided to leave the post to preside over the Parliament of the Canary Islands. In 2023, the president of the Popular Party in the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, offered her to serve as president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
During her time at the head of the Canary Chamber, Pérez and the other members of the Parliament's Board of Directors were involved in a controversy when they removed the allowances received by regional deputies from the official website. This decision was made after the Efe Agency reported that Canary parliamentarians were multiplying their allowances by 131% and that Astrid Pérez was the deputy who received the most in allowances in September 2023.
A party divided in two
The decision to leave the island to preside over the Canary Parliament and disagreements with a sector of the party changed Astrid Pérez's political future and what her colleagues on the island did not expect happened. The internal crisis of the Popular Party of Lanzarote began to show its seams in January 2025. First, Pérez ordered the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort (CC), to snatch the Vice-Presidency of the institution from her colleague Jacobo Medina and give it to María Jesús Tovar instead. The same happened with the areas of Planning and Project Coordination.
Then, in March, she herself expelled Medina from the General Secretariat of the Popular Party of Lanzarote and handed the baton back to Tovar. It then began to be evident that the Popular Party of Lanzarote was once again dividing into two factions: the one formed by Medina and his friend, the mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, and the one loyal to Astrid Pérez.
"The Popular Party is a presidentialist party and it is my responsibility as president to form a strong, cohesive organic team in which we all row in the same direction," Pérez justified at the time the decision to remove Medina. The PP spokesperson in the Cabildo, Ángel Vázquez, also publicly supported the decision: "The party is in charge here, and if I don't like a decision, I'll go home."
In this turbulent period for the Popular Party of Lanzarote, the absence of Astrid Pérez to resolve the attempted escape of the Councilor for Sports of Teguise, Alejandro Ramírez, who tried to leave the municipal government accusing his colleagues of putting "stumbling blocks" in his way, also drew attention. In that crisis, which could have cost the coalition government in the municipality, it was Poli Suárez, general secretary of the PP in the Canary Islands, and Yonathan de León, whom Ramírez thanked for his mediation.
After thanking the Popular Party for their trust over the years and the opportunity to hold different public office, it remains to be seen whether Pérez will remain affiliated with the Popular Party after the party has decided to remove her from the Presidency and whether she will continue her political career.
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