The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Paulino Rivero, has confirmed that, for the CC-PNC-CCN coalition, the new Executive will be composed of Juan Ramón Hernández (Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Water); Domingo Berriel (Public Works, Transport and Territorial Policy); Inés Rojas (Culture, Sports, Social Policies and Housing); Javier González Ortiz (Economy, Finance and Security) and Brígida Mendoza Betancor (Health).
Rivero thus guarantees the continuity of his 'hard core' of loyalists, since together with González Ortíz he also maintains Martín Marrero as Deputy Minister of Communication, Jaime Pérez Llombet as Director of Communication and Francisco Javier Díaz as Chief of Staff.
In addition, Jorge Rodríguez, the former Minister of Employment and Industry who assumed Economy and Finance when the PP left the Executive at the end of 2010, will be appointed Deputy Minister of the Presidency, Tourism and Innovation, areas in which Rivero places special emphasis as engines of economic reactivation and which he wants to have personally attached to the Presidency of the Government.
The ministries that, by virtue of the government pact, will be held by the Canarian Socialist Party (PSC-PSOE), are those of Education, Universities and Sustainability (in the hands of José Miguel Pérez, who will also be vice president); Presidency, Justice and Equality (Francisco Hernández Spínola) and Employment, Industry and Commerce (Margarita Ramos, professor of Labor Law at the University of La Laguna).
An insular model
According to the president, the composition of the Government that starts the VIII Legislature has been formed around two keys. The first, obvious, is that it is a "Government of pact." The second, very important for the praxis of the nationalists when it comes to exercising power, is that it drinks from "a way of understanding the Canary Islands as an insular reality."
"You have to believe in that model, and the first to do so must be the highest institution, the Government of the Canary Islands," he said.
This territorial balance is what has meant that, with the exception of La Gomera and El Hierro, the nationalists will 'seat' five islands on the future government councils and that, with the exception of the Gran Canarian CCN, they have satisfied all the island organizations of the coalition.
This cohesion has not been taken into account by the PSC, which had a more difficult time as it could only propose three councilors, so they have only applied the criterion of parity (two men and one woman), since only the two capital islands are represented in their share of power.
This territorial handicap may be the key to understanding the designation of Ramos to be in charge of Employment, Industry and Commerce, since despite being the sister of the historic mayor of Teror, Juan de Dios Ramos, she is an independent technician, not affiliated to the party and who, despite being of Gran Canarian origin, has developed her personal and working life in Tenerife.
Rationality and coherence
Regarding the organization chart, in which several departments that previously had their own entity have been merged, apart from the savings in expenditure and the "president's criteria", it has been based on the "coherence" and the "profiles of the people" who are going to be in charge of the departments.
"It is reasonable and coherent that Housing is attached to Social Policies, as it was before, and Security can be anywhere, because it is a horizontal Ministry," argued Rivero
According to Rivero, the Government will take office in full next Monday, July 11, at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as doing so tomorrow was "very hasty" and holding the ceremony on Saturday, as the president himself wanted, was impossible because "the socialists have to attend an important event of their party", such as the proclamation of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as a candidate for the next General Elections.
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