The president of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista, Román Rodríguez, has ruled out running as a candidate for Congress in the general elections on July 23. After his candidacy did not obtain a seat in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, the vice president of the Government of the Canary Islands in office has confirmed the reopening of negotiations with Coalición Canaria and other groups "of Canarian obedience" in view of the upcoming elections.
Román Rodríguez has revealed the importance of this possible coalition "in the face of the serious risk of a loss of rights of the Archipelago, a recentralization of the State and an involution in rights and freedoms with a conservative majority in the General Courts".
The leader of Nueva Canarias has stated that he will remain at the head of the organization, with exclusive dedication, "to strengthen the internal structure of progressive Canarianism and coordinate the notable institutional progress achieved in the elections of May 28 at the municipal level, in the island councils and with the maintenance of a parliamentary group of five seats, pending the counting of the vote from abroad", according to the political formation in a note.
Román Rodríguez communicated the deliberations of the executive, held yesterday Wednesday on the results of the regional elections and the call for general elections, together with three of the five deputies elected last Sunday, Carmen Hernández, Esther González and Luis Campos.
"If the conservative majorities that the analyses point to are concretized on July 23", the president of NC-BC asserted that "there will be a serious risk of an attempt to weaken the rights of the Canary Islands and the state of autonomies to centralize all the power in the Administration of the State and a setback in rights, freedoms and public services".
To avoid this regression, "we want to be there (in the General Courts) to defend the Canary Islands and their singularities and that means defending our Statute, the REF and its development, the presence of the Canary Islands in the General State Budgets in the terms that correspond to us, in the autonomous financing, fundamental for the articulation of self-government; and to defend democracy and the advances of self-government and the autonomous State".
With this objective, NC has opened a dialogue with Coalición Canaria to run again, as in 2019, in a nationalist platform and with other groups of Canarian obedience. If it does not materialize, "we do not rule out other spaces of confluence" with progressive formations and, in the last case, alone; as he specified.
Román Rodríguez was in favor of repeating the electoral program that NC and CC defended four years ago for the General Courts, of carrying out a discreet and effective dialogue process and without talking about candidacies, in this beginning of conversations. He raised the convenience of having it decided next Monday since the time for the formalization of the nationalist electoral platform, or another agreement, expires next Friday, June 9.
The national leadership applauded Román Rodríguez's decision not to be a candidate for the Congress of Deputies to dedicate himself, exclusively, to his responsibilities as president of the political party. After recognizing that the institutional tasks assumed by the leaders and militants after each electoral process leaves the organization in the background, "on this occasion there will be a strengthened party leadership" focused on the tasks of affiliation, strengthening internal management structures, studies and training tasks and coordination of institutional policy.
"I am going to be in the front line and there will be no issue that affects the Canary Islands, be it European, Spanish or Canarian, small or large; where the party leadership is not going to be responding, making proposals, building spaces to continue advancing and coordinating the important institutional advance" achieved on 28M, warned the president.
Until the counting of the vote from abroad that will begin next Monday, NC-BC maintains the five seats of 2019 although with the qualitative absence of Rodríguez. In the area of the islands, it advances by achieving three councilors in the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, another two that will sit in the insular Corporation of Lanzarote and the Presidency of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria is revalidated for a third consecutive term.
Nueva Canarias grows in municipalism
At the municipal level, the basis of the growth of Nueva Canarias, in 2019 in Gran Canaria 94 councilors were achieved and now 115, an increase of 22.34%; more than the socialists and the popular ones, Román Rodríguez highlighted. "Now we are working so that, in the local area of Gran Canaria and in the rest of the islands, the space" of progressive Canarianism is consolidated in the governments that are constituted in the cities and municipalities.
In Lanzarote, it has gone from two to 13 councilors and, in Fuerteventura, it grows to 12. In Tenerife it increases from 10 to 25. In La Palma six are maintained, in La Gomera a representative is lost and, in El Hierro, the possibility of presenting candidacies was discarded.
In total, in all of the Canary Islands, it has gone from 128 councilors to 175 municipal representatives, a 36, 71% more. Rodríguez observed that his absence from Parliament "cannot overshadow that we have resisted in the legislature, advanced in the island councils and be decisive as a municipalist force".
He regretted that the electoral process of 28M in the Archipelago, as in the rest of the territories, was contaminated by the "terrible, crude confrontation experienced in state politics between the large political parties. Which translated in the Canary Islands", as he detailed, "with four seats in Parliament for the extreme right, as many for the PP and two less for the PSOE".
The veto to Vox
In parallel, he expressed joy to know that the negotiations in progress between the second and third political force in the islands to form a majority in the Government of the Canary Islands "do not count" with Vox. He expressed the desire that this same decision be replicated in the island councils and city councils. "We must fight the extreme right, defend ourselves against intolerance", invoked the Canarian president.
