The Lanzarote Convention of the Canarian Coalition, held last weekend in Playa Blanca, was the platform chosen by that political formation to launch the harshest criticisms heard so far towards socialism by the leadership of that nationalist formation. Although without directly naming the PSOE but also without leaving doubts about who they were referring to, the island president of CC, Mario Pérez, accused his government partners in the Cabildo of doing "business" with private developers, increasing the number of beds on the island.
When referring to the "political adversaries" of CC in the face of the next elections, and after saying that Alternativa Ciudadana "does not want to do politics, does not want to manage, but only wants to talk about politics", Pérez argued that "on the left we also find other people, people with a flag of sustainability, with a flag of defense of the territory, and all of us looking at that flag, but do you know what those people are doing under the flag of sustainability and defense of the territory? Business, agreements increasing beds, reaching agreements with Algol, with real estate companies within Lanzarote".
Thus, the island president of CC and vice president of the Cabildo criticized, without giving names but unequivocally, the policy that the PSOE is carrying out from the first island Corporation, seeking urban agreements in certain partial plans, although the truth is that one of those he named, specifically the agreement with Algol, was not signed by the Cabildo but by the Teguise City Council, where the current members of Asamblea por Lanzarote govern alone.
However, Mario Pérez only referred to ApL to talk about the harmony of that party with CC, and the need to reach an agreement between both formations for the 2007 elections. "We are negotiating with ApL and we will see if we cross the Rubicon together or we cross it separately", said the island president of CC in the framework of a metaphor about the elections, adding that "we are going to present ourselves to the elections to govern, and for that we need to expand our party, we need generosity and we need those negotiations to be completed".
In turn, and when referring to the differences to be "ironed out" between both formations in the framework of those negotiations, Pérez pointed out that "we cannot have 900 more people on the island every month, all months, and it takes courage to face that".
Already on the internal level, the nationalist president in Lanzarote highlighted that CC "since June of last year has been strengthened, and those who made life impossible for us are no longer in the Canarian Coalition", and therefore, closing his speech, he highlighted that "the only thing we need if we already have a party, if we already have a powerful organization and if we already have a project, which we did not have before, what we have to do is get up from here today knocking door to door, going house by house, saying that the Canarian Coalition is the project of Yaiza, is the project of Lanzarote and is the project of the Canary Islands, and if we do so, the beginning of June 2007 will be the beginning of a dawn of the nationalists in Yaiza, in Lanzarote and in the Canary Islands".
At the Lanzarote Convention of CC, held at the headquarters of that formation in Playa Blanca, was also the national president of the party, Paulino Rivero, who preceded Mario Pérez in the use of the word and was one of the 22 speakers at the event.
"We are not interested in opportunistic parties, we are not interested in agreements with those who only want to occupy positions, but with those who ideologically share and have our same project for Lanzarote, from a open, tolerant, solidary, integrating, non-excluding nationalism, like the one we represent", said Rivero, while expressing his confidence that "in 2007 we are going to win in Lanzarote and we are going to win in the Canary Islands".
