The Teguise Plenary Session held this Wednesday ended up being the scene of an internal dispute within the PP, which has highlighted the fracture that the party has been experiencing for months with who was its head of the list in this municipality, Jonás Álvarez. The still PP spokesperson in La Villa has voted against the urgency of a motion presented by his colleague Nieves Arrocha, in which she demanded the urgent convocation of the Water Consortium due to the water supply problem that La Graciosa is suffering.
The motion, which had been announced by the party in a statement, has not even been debated, as the government group of Coalición Canaria has also voted against the urgency.
“I was unaware of that motion”, Jonás Álvarez has assured La Voz, who points out that he learned about it “solely and exclusively” at the beginning of the plenary session. However, Nieves Arrocha has also assured this media outlet that she sent the documentation to her colleague “on Tuesday afternoon”, as well as to the rest of the parties. “I am not going to go to a plenary session and issue a prior press release without notifying my colleague,” Aroccha adds.
“I have evidence to prove that I sent him the documentation yesterday. I am going to continue presenting motions even if they do not want to debate them. I am going to continue with that, it is what the residents of Teguise want and need,” the councilor maintains.
For his part, Jonás Álvarez defends that he has voted against it out of "coherence" with what he has done in recent years, as he affirms that he has always been “very critical” when the PSOE and Coalición Canaria presented urgent motions without previously informing the rest of the parties.
And in this case, contrary to what Arrocha maintains, he assures that his colleague did not inform him beforehand, and argues that this is why he voted against it. Furthermore, he denounces that this has already happened to him on other occasions, although not in the Plenary Session but in the previous commissions. “I have arrived at commissions and found motions from the Popular Party, without having passed through my hands or even having been informed,” the councilor assures.
“I have not broken any rules, they are breaking them”
The situation of estrangement between Jonás Álvarez and the Popular Party has been evident for months, and the councilor already denounced some time ago that they were trying to remove him from the spokesperson position, despite the fact that the regulations do not allow it. Furthermore, he assures that “he has not been summoned to any Local Committee” since the current president, Ángel Vázquez, was appointed, who disputed that position with Jonás Álvarez last summer, obtaining the majority of votes.
“I have not broken any rules, they are breaking them,” Álvarez assures, who emphasizes that he, as councilor and spokesperson for the PP, is “a natural member of the committee,” and that therefore he should be summoned as such. However, he acknowledges that he was summoned “to two meetings at the house of the committee secretary,” but affirms that he could not attend either of the two, remaining at the expense of “a third summons”. “They are private meetings, which I could have with my party colleague”, he adds.
“The situation has not been good at all, not only politically, but personally,” assures the councilor, who adds that he will have to “face” and “defend himself” in case the Popular Party takes any action against him. However, when asked if he is considering resigning, Jonás Álvarez assures that the “commitment” he acquired in 2019 weighs more. “We must fulfill that responsibility, especially when one is the head of the list”.
For her part, after the Plenary Session, Nieves Arrocha stated that she had not yet spoken to anyone from the party about the possible adoption of measures against Jonás Álvarez for that vote against a motion. Regarding the request to change the spokesperson that Álvarez denounced in his day, Arrocha assures that what was requested was “that the mayor address Nieves Arrocha instead of Jonás Álvarez”. “We are two parties in the mixed group, Podemos and PP, and the mayor has the courtesy of giving the floor to Podemos and Jonás Álvarez. All we asked was that he give the floor to Nieves Arrocha instead of Jonás Álvarez, although he continues to give it to Jonás,” she explains.
Regarding the possibility of an expulsion of Álvarez from the party, Arrocha considers that they are “very serious” words, and affirms that until now she “has not heard them” from any colleague.
