The stability of the current government pact over twelve months, which is no small feat after the situation that preceded that period, and the enormous difficulties, despite that stability, to carry out the most important pending issues for the island, of which the Special Territorial Plan is its most obvious example, are placed on either side of the scale as the most important issues in the balance of Inés Rojas' first year as president of the Cabildo.
A president who came to that position in the midst of the most turbulent situation that has been experienced in the First Island Corporation in all its history: seven councilors preceded her in the exercise of the Presidency in the first two years of the Legislature, in the midst of which Inés Rojas herself and the majority of her party colleagues in the Cabildo voted in favor of a motion of censure against her then fellow party member, María José Docal, staging what a few months later would be the definitive rupture of the PIL, with the formation of Asamblea por Lanzarote.
In addition, the acclamation of Inés Rojas as president was hanging by a thread until almost the same day of the investiture plenary, since the PSOE (member of the new tripartite, together with the split from the PIL and CC) understood that it had the right for its head of list, Manuel Fajardo, to be elected president by the council plenary, for which it was necessary to resort to the Central Electoral Board to pronounce on the matter. The Board sided with the thesis that Inés Rojas should be automatically acclaimed as president, in a divided ruling, since only half of the ten members of the Board voted in favor of that thesis (three voted against and the remaining two abstained).
Thus, on June 30, 2005, Inés Rojas assumed the Presidency of the Cabildo. There were not a few who interpreted that she would be president only for a few days, in the midst of those institutional ups and downs that seemed to have no end, but the facts have proven otherwise.
Maneuvering outside and inside
During the twelve months since her acclamation, Rojas has had to deal with many weighty issues and maneuver not only with the opposition, but also with her own government partners, and there have been several "cracks" that have been revealed in the pact.
The PTE has been the great issue of political confrontation, with conflicting and irreducible positions between the members of ApL and CC on one side, and the socialists on the other. And in the midst of that debate, the approval of that plan remains stalled and without any signs of solution in the immediate future. Rojas adopted a suggestive and weighty decision in the midst of that debate, since on May 1st she decided to remove the control of the PTE from the Councilor of Territorial Policy, Carlos Espino, to pass it to the Presidency, although in concrete terms, that did not imply any progress towards the approval of the plan either.
A concrete and important fact has been the precautionary suspension of the granting of licenses for one year in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, approved by the Cabildo plenary on May 28, within the framework of the processing of the PTE. That precautionary suspension is, to this day, the most important step taken in the last year in the field of territorial policy, where progress has been very scarce.
Another important fact that marked Inés Rojas' first year as president was that of wine - vinegar. The decision of the Cabildo to buy the surplus grapes from an extraordinary harvest from the farmers ended up becoming a burden for the Government Group, since 120,000 liters of wine made with those grapes were spoiled. In this issue, Rojas also decided to take the lead in the situation when it seemed that it was slipping out of their hands, in a gesture of courage that, however, did not allow to clarify completely what happened, beyond the announcement that with the spoiled wine a balsamic vinegar of excellent quality would be made.
Nature also did not want to give Inés Rojas calm, since Lanzarote suffered at the end of last year one of the most intense storms in history, the Delta. The management by the Cabildo of the emergency created by that storm also left the president in doubt, although what has been most attributed to her is the formal fact of not having convened an extraordinary and monographic plenary with urgency, and not that things were not done. In what Inés Rojas was very quick and accurate of reflexes was in warning in the morning of the same day of the storm what was coming, with an alarmism that first received criticism and even jokes, although when that night arrived in which almost nobody slept in Lanzarote, it was clear that the declarations and precautions requested to the population by the president had not been at all exaggerated.
Intermediary in labor disputes
The labor disputes also marked this year of Legislature, and also in this area Inés Rojas showed the necessary courage to try to give her contribution of calm and impartiality, with dissimilar results. The president mediated in the conflict of the workers of Iberia in Guacimeta in August of last year, although the stubbornness of one and another part made that the efforts of Rojas were vain, that only obtained a temporary suspension of the strike, that soon returned and with greater hardness, and that still to day is latent.
The president also mediated in the conflict with the workers of the Tourist Centers, in July 2005, in the middle of the negotiation of their collective agreements and the call for strike, in this case with better results than with the employees of Iberia.
The delay in payment to certain sectors by the Cabildo also marked this year of Inés Rojas. The grassroots football starred in the last months of last year its biggest protest, by paralyzing all competitions for the delay in the payment of subsidies for the last three years of sports schools. An inherited situation that Rojas had to face and that caused not a few disappointments, even considering the possibility of dismissing the Councilor for Sports, the socialist Francisca Toledo, for her harsh statements against who had preceded her in that position, and that was none other than Inés Rojas herself, although finally the blood did not reach the river, the clubs charged, and everyone happy.
The workers of the Hospitality School were also protagonists of protests for delay in the payment of their salaries, and also here Inés Rojas managed to temper the spirits a little and redirect in part a very complicated situation, although without fully conforming to the teachers.
Immigrants and statute
A subject in which Inés Rojas could do little despite her will of leadership also in this case, was that of the construction of a new center of internment of undocumented immigrants. The proposal of the State for that center to be built in Güime provoked a deep rejection among the neighbors of that locality, before which Rojas proposed, in March past, the alternative that its location be Tahíche. A proposal made without consulting the City Council of Teguise and that brought headaches to the president of the Cabildo, who finally had to rectify and refrain from continuing to opine on the subject.
Other declarations of Inés Rojas that gave much to talk about were those related to the Statute of Autonomy. On March 22, the president of the Cabildo proposed in a plenary that the Canary Islands be recognized as a Nation. A proposal that did not have the support of the corporation and that transcended the borders of the archipelago, since those controversial statements of Rojas were collected by several national newspapers.
In any case, during this year, Inés Rojas always shunned the heated debate, with her personal contribution to avoid any type of tension, with an attitude and vision qualified for some as too idealistic, although others consider that the president has made a balmy contribution that Lanzarote's politics needed.
