The PSOE of Lanzarote has described the explanations offered today by the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, as "grotesque" during the plenary session requested by the opposition to address his repeated absences during the ordinary session of October, whose seat remained empty for more than half of the meeting, which led the opposition groups to walk out of the Plenary.
Far from clarifying the reasons that led him to stand up the institution, Betancort ended up offering an excuse that the Socialist Group considers "unusual and disrespectful to citizens." The spokesperson for the Socialist Group, Ariagona González, highlighted that the president "was not only unable to justify his absence," but also "ended up ridiculing the institution with an argument unbecoming of the island's highest public official.""Hearing that he left the Plenary because he ran into a farmer in the hallway is both laughable and embarrassing. Given the 'seriousness' of the excuse, in the next Plenary we'll have to ask for doors and hallways to be closed so the president doesn't get the temptation to leave again," González quipped.The spokesperson recalled that the president "was not facing a minor appointment," but rather the Plenary of the Cabildo, the most important democratic oversight body of the institution."Plenary sessions are not abandoned due to chance, impromptu meetings, or distractions. They are presided over, listened to, debated, and accounted for. That is governing," he added
“The most serious thing is that it announces that there will continue to be shortages”
For González, the worst part of Betancort's intervention was not the "hallway" excuse, but the assertion that she will continue to be absent when her schedule so dictates. "It is Dantean to hear a president admit without blushing that she will continue to miss plenary sessions as if they were optional. This idea that presiding over the Cabildo is sometimes yes, sometimes no, is incompatible with the most basic democratic principles," stated González
The Socialist Group emphasizes that the institutional agenda cannot be used as a "permanent excuse" to avoid political oversight. "The president does not miss the Plenary session because he cannot: he misses it because he does not want to submit to questions and debate. And that is extremely serious," they denounced.
Lack of respect for citizens and degradation of the institution
González insisted that these repeated absences, coupled with excuses he described as "shameful," represent "a conscious deterioration of the institutional respect that the Cabildo deserves." "The Plenary Session is not an option: it is the democratic heart of the island. A president who allows himself to abandon it and who, moreover, announces that he will continue to do so, is degrading the institution he represents," he statedThe spokesperson concluded by pointing out that Lanzarote "cannot afford a president who treats the Plenary session as an annoying formality": "Lanzarote needs a president who is present, who responds, and who is accountable. Today, it was unfortunately clear that Oswaldo Betancort is not in that disposition."
