The president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort (CC), has decided to go ahead with the intervention of Canal Gestión, despite the frontal resistance of his partner, the Partido Popular.
The Assembly of the Island Water Consortium approved this Monday, unanimously, the initiation of the procedure to rescue the service and apply a precautionary intervention. The decision is made after the technical reports that certify a "serious disturbance" and structural in the supply, with frequent cuts and an infrastructure in a state of "maximum precariousness".
The Popular Party had formally requested to leave the decision "on the table" alleging legal prudence. However, Betancort has been blunt in linking the PP's stance with the defense of the Madrid company Canal de Isabel II (parent company of the concessionaire), led by the PP itself in Madrid.
"I come here to manage and not to please a few. If the Popular Party prioritizes the interests of a party affiliated with Canal Gestión, that seems very good to me, but I have to attend to the neighbors and residents," the president declared.
Betancort did not avoid the possibility of a government breakdown, assuring that if the decision costs him the position, he will leave "calm because it is what the people ask for". In a metaphorical tone, the nationalist leader warned that this intervention "is going to move the olive tree and 4 or 5 olives will fall, which are organic positions of the parties".
Immediate intervention for "general interest"
The approved measure implies that the Consortium will directly assume the management of the service, taking control of the human, material, and economic resources of Canal Gestión. The absence of the only PP mayor on the island, Yonathan de León, in the vote (being replaced by his deputy mayor from CC), underscored the internal fracture that this issue has generated.
Despite the threats of "forceful" legal actions by the company, Betancort has closed ranks with the technical reports: "Lanzarote has no time. Today we have demonstrated that the general interest is above political colors".