Elsa Betancort and Maite Gorriz will be the candidates of Lanzarote en Pie- Si Podemos for the Mayorships of Teguise and San Bartolomé respectively. "They are two wonderful activist women", highlighted the general secretary of Podemos in Arrecife and candidate for the City Council of the capital, Leticia Padilla. Betancort is one of the spokespersons for the Platform for a Decent Housing of Lanzarote, while Gorriz is an "active" member of the 8-M Platform.
"I think it is the first time that a party merges in this way with civil society and directly offers them to lead electoral lists. That is something that has never been seen in Lanzarote, at least not in the way it has been worked", Padilla highlighted.
Likewise, the general secretary of Podemos in Arrecife and candidate for the Mayor's Office of the capital, has pointed out that "the rest of the lists are also made up of people who are active in their field, who participate in the life of their town, of associations".
"Lanzarote en Pie is not a political party"
In this sense, he has highlighted the work done "together with Lanzarote en Pie", also responding to the statements of the island coordinator of IU, José Carballo, who after his formation abandoned the table of confluence of left-wing parties of the island, assured that who had set up Lanzarote en Pie, which was presented in society as a "citizen platform", was Podemos.
"It is not a political party. And I already made it very clear too, despite the statements of some people, that I was not behind this for anything", said Leticia Padilla, who insisted that Lanzarote en Pie is "simply a working group made up of associations, groups, independent people and political parties".
"It is a common space and together we are working on a candidacy that looks like that, where the lists include the most active people in their municipality, independent people, members of associations and groups. And it is an honor to present these lists", Padilla pointed out, who has pointed out that next week the names of the people who make up all the candidacies will be announced. "And surely some will be surprised by some people who are on the lists", he added. In this way, from these meetings these candidacies have been born that will be presented under the nomenclature Lanzarote en Pie- Si Podemos in these two municipalities where the purple formation did not hold primaries.
In "negotiation" with Equo
Likewise, after the internal crisis that Podemos has suffered, which meant the announcement of resignation of who was its island leadership and that the majority of its public officials are going to leave the party at the end of the mandate, and the failure of the confluence table, which in addition to IU abandoned Somos Lanzarote and Alternativa Ciudadana, Leticia Padilla has assured that the purple formation continues "in negotiation" with Equo "so that they join".
"Equo has been reactivated here on the island with great enthusiasm, I think that the elections have stirred them up a bit, that there was desire, people and that they simply had to unite to start working and we are seeing if there is a possibility", Padilla pointed out, revealing that there is still nothing closed. However, "if in the end with Equo there is also an agreement at the autonomous and state level", he believes that "there should be no problem for there to be an agreement in Lanzarote".
