Lanzarote En Pie (LEP) held its candidacy presentation assembly for the 2023 municipal elections to the Teguise City Council. In the act, Chona Brito Betancort was ratified as head of the list for the Mayoralty.
From the municipalist organization they are pleased to have Chona Brito for the project in Teguise since "for decades she has been a teacher involved in different associative and social movements as a citizen and grassroots worker, who has participated in labor struggles, in the movement for the equality of women or against the destruction of the territory.”
"Now she has decided to participate in the next electoral process leading a list of progress, open to participation and with the will to turn the Teguise City Council into a more empathetic institution closer to the problems of the neighbors", they point out from Lanzarote En Pie.
For Brito, the Teguise City Council has become in recent times an institution that is "too distant and inaccessible, where citizen participation is not encouraged and where its leaders seem more concerned with promoting their own political careers than in the development of the municipality." In addition, she believes that the partisan confrontation and between institutions such as the Cabildo or the Government has come to "bog down political action", preventing priority problems from being solved, such as the ordering of natural spaces or the construction of basic infrastructures for the well-being of citizens.”
The island coordinator of Lanzarote En Pie, Leticia Padilla, pointed out that this candidacy is presented as "an opportunity for agreement, to seek solutions where others put confrontation, placing on the table the issues that affect neighbors, such as access to housing, the maintenance of public spaces, the care of the elderly, cultural and youth revitalization, the need to diversify and qualify the economy of the municipality or the solution of problems such as the water supply in rural areas and La Graciosa.”
Responses to a diverse municipality
Chona Brito is clear that Teguise "is a diverse municipality and that the city council should be that close institution that provides answers to a problem that is also disparate." In this sense, the candidate maintains that "we are the largest municipality on the island, which has a tourist and residential area such as Costa Teguise, a large number of towns in the interior, with their own problems; a historic center such as that of the Villa, and an island with its own reality and idiosyncrasy, such as La Graciosa.”
One of the objectives for Lanzarote En Pie in Teguise is "to face the challenge of sustainability, especially in the Natural Park of the Chinijo Archipelago, Famara and El Jable." For the municipalists it is urgent to resume citizen participation processes that allow measuring the carrying capacity of the protected spaces of the municipality, avoiding their overexploitation and ensuring the conservation of natural resources and the well-being of its inhabitants. The management of waste and water will also be central issues to be dealt with citizens, social agents and other institutions involved.”
They also consider it necessary to respond to the problem of housing, energetically demanding the promotion of social housing and rentals, as well as regulating vacation rentals, "a municipal competence that this city council has renounced", they say.
Another of the axes on which the participatory process they propose pivots is social welfare, demanding responses for an elderly population that needs attention, care and revitalization, as well as a youth that has to recover public spaces and socio-cultural centers.
Likewise, from the team that accompanies Brito, they maintain that the economy of Teguise has "much more to offer to those of us who reside here and to those who visit us." In that sense, they hope to have during the next months and years with the contributions of the primary sector, of the merchants of the municipality and the artisan sector to make Teguise "a more economically diversified municipality, more cared for, and that brings out all its cultural, historical and natural potential.”
In any case, "it is about building a candidacy and a program open to participation, where the neighbors are the ones who define the strategic lines of their municipality", concludes Chona Brito.