"Some of us are more relaxed since you are no longer a Waste councilor." This was the phrase that the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés, said to his party colleague Sergio Machín, arrested this Tuesday in the "Enredadera" operation. In an ordinary plenary session just a year ago, in November 2013, the president once again cast doubt on this councilor, who he had previously removed from the Waste area, but whom he never dismissed and later appointed as CC spokesperson in the Corporation.
However, if there is an area that is associated with Sergio Machín during the last legislatures, it is that of Roads and Works, which he has occupied in different mandates and even militating under the acronyms of different parties. Since 2005 he has been in CC, although in this legislature he has starred in several controversies within the government group, who he has put in more than one predicament. He has also had discussions with the president, who did not hesitate to dedicate these harsh words to him in a Plenary Session, showing his distrust towards him.
In the first stage of the legislature, the waters seemed calm, at least with Machín. CC reached a government pact with the PP and Machín was assigned the areas of Public Works, which he had already held in 2005, Roads and Works, Mobile Park and Technical Office. However, that pact ended up breaking and CC reached a new alliance with the PSOE. It was then that Public Works passed into the hands of the PSOE, of the councilor José Antonio Gutiérrez, and Machín assumed the areas of Waste, Classified Activities and Security and Emergencies, but they only lasted a little over a year.
"Complex and millionaire" processes
And it is that in May 2013, relations between the president and Machín began to become complicated, when San Ginés decided to withdraw his powers in Classified Activities and also in Waste. He alleged that "a very complex award process was coming, which would compromise the institution for the next 15 or 20 years", in relation to the award of the management of services in the Zonzamas landfill. He even assured that they were "complex and millionaire processes", which required the "direct solution of the Presidency", doubting the councilor's capacity.
Sergio Machín lashed out against this restructuring. Specifically, he showed his "surprise and perplexity" at this measure, "especially" when the decision occurred when he was on leave, "by medical prescription." And he expressed how "surprising" the "egocentrism" of the fact was, since the "degradation" was carried out in favor of San Ginés.
Months later, in July he decided to submit his resignation to the area that remained, that of Security and Emergencies, and left the government group. And it is that both he and his party colleague Mónica Álvarez began to break the voting discipline of CC in the Cabildo, putting the government group in trouble during several Plenary Sessions, since without them it did not achieve a sufficient majority.
CC came to ask for his act
The tension was so palpable that even the CC Executive Commission came to ask both councilors to hand over the act, but they did not. Almost a year after both councilors adopted this "dissident" attitude, councilor Sergio Machín rejoined the government group of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and although he did not hold any area, he became the spokesperson for CC.
Precisely, this Tuesday he attended as party spokesperson to an education and culture commission in the Cabildo. During this meeting, he received a call, went outside and shortly after returned, picked up his things, apologized and left without further explanation. After that, the councilors who were in that commission learned through the press that Machín had been arrested.
Machín, in addition to holding various areas of responsibility in the Cabildo for years, has gone through several political parties during his career in public life. Thus, he began his political life in the PSOE, and then moved to the ranks of the PIL. However, there was a strong split in this party in 2005, which meant that the majority of the councilors moved to the Canarian Coalition, although before that the Assembly for Lanzarote (APL) was created.
