ACN
The president of the Canarian Coalition, Paulino Rivero, has advocated for the approval of the so-called second Lotraca -Organic Law of Transfers for the Canary Islands- as a prior step to the departure of the regional Parliament of the proposed reform of the Statute that would be sent to the General Courts, in the event that it is rejected to integrate it into the text itself. Once that law is approved -which "if there is political will", can be in three months - the second step "would be to address the statutory reform, including the electoral reform", he says in a press release, in which, contradictorily, he also points out that that term would coincide with the entry of the Statute in the Congress of Deputies. "Canarian Coalition is not going to fall into the naivety that the statutory reform is agreed upon in the Canary Islands and then expose itself to not being accepted in Madrid," says Rivero, who adds that this and not his party is "the real danger to our Statute."
"If the reform of the Statute of Autonomy does not go ahead -he reiterated- it will be because the PSOE blocks it in Madrid," he said, responding to the statements made yesterday by the general secretary of the Canarian socialists, Juan Carlos Alemán, in which he defended that the president of CC had "disauthorized" the regional president, Adán Martín, for saying that "there will be no need to tear one's clothes" if the reform does not prosper, when it is one of the main objectives that he has set for the Legislature.
For Rivero "the main obstacle" for a reform of the Statute of Autonomy to take place in the Canary Islands is not the Canarian Coalition "but the PSOE, which has changed its position without noticing it, as was evident yesterday in the debate on the entirety of the proposed reform of the Valencian Statute." The nationalist president explains that "yesterday, the top leaders of the PSOE warned, against Zapatero's promise, that it is not enough for the statutory reforms to be agreed upon by the regional parliaments and be constitutional, insinuating the possibility that they will oppose increases in powers."
To emphasize the interest of CC in reforming the Statute, the also spokesman for the Canarian nationalist group in Congress recalls that his party "had a deep statutory reform in its electoral program and it was Adán Martín who promoted it, creating the Advisory Committee and involving members of all the formations, including the PSOE." In fact, Rivero recalls that "the basis of the work of the parliamentary committee is based on the conclusions of the committee of experts."
Electoral reform
Regarding the reform of the electoral system that the PSC has imposed as a condition to support the statutory, the nationalist president reiterates that "the PSOE is entrenched in its proposal for an autonomous electoral list, which does not contribute an iota of democracy, since it would distribute the seats in the three majority formations, so it is not accepted by any other party."
Rivero assures that this proposal benefits CC electorally, since it would be the formation that would obtain the most seats with the results of the three previous elections, but even so he opposes its implementation, because "it clashes with the conception of the Canary Islands that CC conceives: Canary Islands from the bottom up, a federal Canary Islands, and we are working in that line." In any case, he reiterates that any attempt to break the triple parity has to go through the search for another balance between the two most populated islands and the remaining five.
Regarding the "multiple leaderships" -another of Alemán's allusions-, Rivero estimates that "one of the assets of the Canarian Coalition is, precisely, to have many leaders in each and every one of the islands, who can assume the responsibility of leading the national construction project that the Canarian nationalists have for the Canary Islands." However, the president of the nationalists believes that "an understanding between the Canarian Coalition and the centralist parties, PSOE and PP, is possible to achieve the best Statute for the Canary Islands."
