Andrés Medina, president of the Argana Alta Neighborhood Association:
"WHAT SAN GINÉS SHOULD DO IS WORRY ABOUT THE PROBLEMS OF THE NEIGHBORS"
"I think it's bad that, in addition to going against a media outlet, San Ginés is attacking other people, instead of worrying about the island. He should try to solve the problems that affect the neighbors. We, right now, are already tired of filing complaints about the landfill, and we are still very concerned about the bad smells. We have not yet been told whether what is coming out of Zonzamas, in two or three years, will mean that we continue living in the land we are now or that we will have to go to the other place.
This is what they should be concerned about right now and not other things. Also, no matter how many press conferences the president or the director of Waste, José Juan Lorenzo, give on the subject of the landfill, they are only lies what they are saying. And what good are they to us?"
Hiniesta Távaros, president of Law and Justice:
"STOP SHOWING OFF AND TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWN"
"I'm not surprised that the president disqualifies. I want him to stop showing off and take care of the people of the town, who he also comes from the town. Let him take care of his people! The position is too big for him, that's the pure truth, it's like 18 sizes too big. He's not up to it.
If Pedro San Ginés runs in the elections, Coalición Canaria will not get votes. I think there are people in CC who are much more qualified than San Ginés, who have more experience and more intelligence.
The Law and Justice Association works in favor of prisoners. Already with Manuela Armas, we managed to get the Cabildo to subsidize part of the trips for families lacking the means who have their children in prisons in the peninsula.
Through the mediation of the former president of the Cabildo, we were able to manage this with the director of Penitentiary Institutions, who told us that they would take care of it, but that, until reaching the agreement, the Cabildo would help us.
Suddenly the Cabildo changed from one day to the next and we went to talk to Pedro San Ginés, who didn't even listen to us. He immediately cut off that aid and we asked him for an appointment. He told us he would call us, but more than two months passed. I called him again, he told me he was busy. He told us that this, in reality, was not an issue that the Cabildo had to deal with. But I suppose that the Cabildo is an institution that has to take care of all citizens, also the relatives of prisoners. I told him that the agreement was already there, but he erased it, he removed it. In August they told me they were going to call me and I'm still waiting."
Carmen Arrocha, president of Afol:
"I SUPPOSE THAT A PERSON WHO VALUES THEMSELVES CANNOT SAY THESE THINGS LIKE THAT"
"I don't think it's good at all. I suppose that a person who values themselves cannot say these things like that, especially without verifying. A president of the Cabildo cannot say just anything, that has to be taken into account. Before speaking, you have to make sure of things a little. I also think that San Ginés can use the appropriate means to say what he believes, but always verifying his information."
Juan Francisco Hernández, citizen platform Jable
"IF HE CAN'T BE IN POLITICS, LET HIM DEDICATE HIMSELF TO SOMETHING ELSE"
"I think it's bad. It's unprofessional. This behavior is totally disastrous. If Pedro San Ginés can't be in politics, let him dedicate himself to something else. Let him leave, but let him not create these messes. He is using an institution and a position that the people have given him. We, the citizens, pay him and all the politicians not to criticize and do whatever they want, but to work. Besides, they criticize without foundation.
I went to talk to the Cabildo and they didn't even receive me. I went to talk to Manuel Cabrera, from the PIL, and Pedro San Ginés was next to him to sign a manifesto against corruption. The one from the PIL told me that he wouldn't sign it and Pedro didn't sign it either. I would like to tell the president to fight against corruption. In our manifesto we demanded that they not govern with corrupt politicians, with those charged. And that is not being fulfilled."
Fernando Jiménez, member of Aculanza
"WE ARE USED TO POLITICIANS USING INSTITUTIONS FOR PARTISAN ISSUES"
"The important thing for consumers, for citizens, is that they talk about projects that are going to be done. What matters to consumers is that work is improved, that the shopping basket is not so expensive, and not that the president of the Cabildo is dedicated to explaining things about the internal regime of political groups or their problems with the media.
What is happening in Lanzarote cannot be fixed even by Nelson Mandela. We are used to political agents dedicating themselves to using institutions for partisan issues. My key word for this press conference would be boring.
What he has to tell us is why the shopping basket is more expensive in Lanzarote and why the surfaces are not larger than 2,000 square meters."
Sister Ana, president of "Calor y Café"
"WHEN YOU GET INTO POLITICS YOU HAVE TO BE PREPARED FOR CRITICISM"
"I think that politicians have to be cured against all criticism and all questions. This type of press conferences should not be given by anyone. When you get into politics you have to be prepared for the criticism that is going to come to you and for the praise, which may come to you without deserving it, because they are the result of other things. The president has to be cured.
From Calor y Café I will ask San Ginés for few things and I ask the rest of the politicians for few things. We have always fought so that Calor y Café has nothing to do with subsidies through institutions or politicians. I always say that if we have a euro to spend we do it and, if not, we don't give it. You cannot depend on what politicians give you, because it is very poor and very insecure. What they give you this year, they don't give you next year. Our work cannot be based on what institutions give you or not, I think it has to be based on the effort of the project that, in some way, has taken shape in the population."
Vicky Sande, general secretary of CCOO in Lanzarote"
"IT IS AN INSULT TO THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE CITIZENS OF LANZAROTE"
"I had heard about the press conference that San Ginés gave and I couldn't believe it. After listening to it, I think it is an insult to the intelligence of the citizens of Lanzarote. What a lack of humility and what arrogance he has! The president cannot use the Cabildo for a press conference like that. Personal issues are personal issues. As a public figure, San Ginés is exposed to receiving both good and bad criticism. I can also receive insults and I can receive praise.
What San Ginés has to do is think about why he is being criticized and think about what he is doing wrong. This way he can try to correct it, because it is not just one person who is telling him, but many. He is the one who is going against the tide, he has to meditate. Let's remember that it is a total and absolute accident that he is president of the Cabildo. He has to change his policy, he is not taking Lanzarote where he has to take it."
César Reyes, general secretary of UGT in Lanzarote"
"THE DECLARATIONS SHOULD BE MADE FROM THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK"
"The president of the Cabildo has to be in the search for solutions to the problems of the island. The declarations, which can be free of the opinion that he has of some media or communicators, should be made from the political framework. But the situation of Coalición Canaria is what it is, but I understand that those manifestations are out of place as president of the Cabildo. As a member of CC he is free to express them.
I would ask the president of the Cabildo to try to provide solutions to the island and, mainly, to worry about the lack of means when it comes to being able to carry out a labor inspection. The central and Canarian governments have just reached an agreement so that the labor inspection becomes the sole responsibility of the autonomous government. I ask San Ginés to make this work well on this island."
Assessment of the César Manrique Foundation
"THESE ARE DISPROPORTIONATE AND IMPROPER BEHAVIORS"
"The César Manrique Foundation regrets the deterioration suffered by public administrations in general and the Cabildo in particular with this type of actions in which citizens and media outlets that exercise the constitutional right of freedom of the press and freedom of opinion are attacked. And, naturally, the Foundation feels at the antipodes of such disproportionate and improper public behaviors, exercised from institutional representation. We should not continue adding discredit and distrust to the disaffection generated by insular politics, hit by corruption, power struggles, the absence of visible public virtues, and inefficiency in the management of the general interest.
The exercise of abuse of power is not only reprehensible but undesirable in democracy, because, when a public official who holds high levels of political power defends himself from the criticisms he receives from civil society, fair or unfair, attacking those who censure him, there is an evident inequality always in favor of the one who holds the authority and the resources and the status that it confers. Hence the defenselessness that occurs and the unacceptable inversion of roles, because the function of the Administration is to protect all the administered, regardless of the positions they hold, and to favor the exercise of their fundamental rights.
How can a public official defend himself from what he considers harmful to the interests he promotes and to his own image? First, with tolerance and with example, reinforcing the democratic framework, respecting citizens even above oneself and publicly arguing their decisions to convince critics of the goodness of their initiatives.
Any public official who defends himself trying to discredit and trying to humiliate even just one of the citizens of his community practices tyranny, distorts democracy and abuses the power that we have all deposited in him. But, with his belligerence improper of the position he holds, above all, he disqualifies himself as a political instrument to generate consensus and create a social climate contrary to tension. We know that governing is complex, often ungrateful, and a demanding task that is not within everyone's reach. We see it every day. That is the challenge, precisely. And we also know that, in democracy, the forms are the substance."
José Morales, social activist and trade unionist
"IT IS REGRETTABLE THAT HE USES INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES FOR A PERSONAL PRONOUNCEMENT"
"With La Voz I had a big difference. This media outlet made an editorial against me, but I don't have to mix apples and oranges. My personal affairs are personal and collective affairs are collective and I cannot give a press conference to criticize La Voz. Pedro San Ginés should not have used a space like the Cabildo, the highest institution of Lanzarote, to pronounce himself on personal matters. The living room of his house or the social premises of his party would have been more appropriate.
Pedro San Ginés does not represent only himself and his party, he represents the population of the island of Lanzarote, whether we like it more or less. Pedro San Ginés is accidentally representing the island of Lanzarote, to locals and strangers. I find it regrettable that a president of the Cabildo uses institutional resources for a personal pronouncement."
Nieves Rosa Hernández, president of the Mararía Association
"YOU CAN'T SAY THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO YOUR HEAD"
"I think it is important that anyone who represents any entity distinguishes very well when they make personal statements and when they make them on behalf of the institution they represent. I believe that from any institution you should pave the way whenever possible. You have to work on behalf of everyone. The presidency of the Cabildo requires special tact and great responsibility. You can't say the first thing that comes to your head.
I would ask the president of the Cabildo as well as the rest of the institutions for their awareness and their prioritization when governing for social issues and for the prevention and eradication of gender violence. This was one of the tasks he had ahead of him when he assumed the presidency of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, an island where there are so many complaints and so much social problem. San Ginés must be reminded of the need to work in this sense."
Juan Luis Jiménez, spokesman for Intersindical Canaria
"IT SEEMS THAT I WAS WATCHING LA NORIA OR ANY OTHER GOSSIP PROGRAM"
"I feel second-hand embarrassment, because it seems that I was watching La Noria, or any other gossip program. I find it impressive. With the issue of the dismissal of the PIOT technicians, due to the Montaña Roja issue, this gentleman employs a strategy that is for a defense, a good attack. This is not the way to proceed, because what it shows is that when the river sounds, it carries water. Because if this gentleman believes that all the accusations he launches against him are totally injurious, he does not have to proceed in this way. Not so low. What we are seeing is the deterioration of the institutions of Lanzarote, in what state of decay these institutions have fallen and we see how there is little to scratch. With the issue of the crisis, when here there have been so many profiteers and so many scoundrels who have enriched themselves, with this economic model that has been implemented for years, of a speculative and predatory nature, that those of us who have paid the consequences are the workers.
It seems a lie that we have to be paying taxes to these gentlemen, who what they have to do is get to work, that here we have a situation of terrible social breakdown, a situation of growing poverty, a tremendous human helplessness as a consequence of the unemployment situation that we are experiencing and a horizon more than black for all the workers of Lanzarote.
We have enough trash TV programs, so that now the Cabildo also lends itself to the same type of model of expression before the media."
José Curbelo, president of the Los Lirios Association
"WE ALL HAVE A WEAPON, AND SAN GINÉS HAS THE PRESS CONFERENCES"
"I didn't hear the press conference, but I did listen a little to San Ginés, who said that what had happened is that they were going against him and that behind that there were some news media. I don't know if he shouldn't give this press conference. It may be an opinion. But perhaps he felt harassed by certain people and politicians and has made it public.
You have to recognize the courage that San Ginés has had in saying it. If they were unfounded things, then there are the Courts to be able to intervene, in case some of the people who were named want to do so. But I don't see the president's attitude as bad. We all have a weapon. The one who has a television has a weapon, the one who has a media outlet has a weapon and San Ginés has the press conferences."
Vicenta Monge, president of Tiamar
"SAN GINÉS SHOULD NOT HAVE EXPOSED HIMSELF TO THIS TYPE OF PRESS CONFERENCES"
"I think that it should not have been him who manifested himself like that, but that his cabinet should have done it. I think that the Cabildo did have to put things in their place, but perhaps the figure of the president was not the most appropriate, because he is the president of the Cabildo and of all the people of Lanzarote. I think that the official press conferences are for that, but it should have been given by someone who was not precisely the president.
For that he has a whole cabinet, advisors, councilors and spokespersons. I think he should not have exposed himself to this type of press conferences. But it is true that Pedro San Ginés has a campaign within his party and outside of it exaggerated and part of the citizens of Lanzarote do not want to recognize that for the little time he has been doing things in a positive way."
Ezequiel Navío, member of Urban Transparency
"THE PRESS CONFERENCE WAS OUT OF COMMON SENSE"
"From Urban Transparency we do not want to assess that a president of the Cabildo enters into discussion with members of his own party taking advantage of a public act. It is something that society as a whole has to assess. What we do think is that a political leader of the stature of a president of the Cabildo has to be much more beyond victimhood and making himself seen before public opinion as a victim of a plot.
A president of the Cabildo represents all citizens and has to be at a political and social level far above the public manifestations he made the other day. He always has to speak positively. With respect to the criticisms of members of his party, I think that if he has problems at home, he has to cook them at home, not outside. From the social point of view, a president of the Cabildo has to be there to face the problems with moderation, with rationality and with common sense. The press conference he held last Friday was out of common sense."
Assessment of the Association "CAnarias International Zone for the Culture of Peace and Human Rights"
"USING INSTITUTIONS AS A PRIVATE HUNTING GROUND BORDERS ON TOTALITARIANISM"
"Democracy is not defined only by the procedures for electing rulers and by free competition for the vote. The democratic task consists of strengthening democratic institutions and dignifying them by making them credible and respecting the freedom of expression and thought to which every citizen has the right and, if we push it, the duty. All those actions in which institutions are used as the "private hunting ground" from which to take advantage and serve for personal or sectarian purposes, not only deepens citizen disaffection and borders on totalitarianism, but directly attacks the basic principles and fundamental rights on which coexistence, peaceful development and the Constitutional mandate are based.
What must be asked of the Cabildo is pride, not arrogance, with respect to the Cabildo Institution and the freedom of citizens; equanimity in judgments; dignity with the public function where the fundamental criterion in policies must be respect for legality and be in a position to give a fair account of the actions under criteria of general interest."
RELATED NEWS
[The opinion of the institutional representatives of the Canary Islands and the island->46015]
[EDITORIAL: The Cabildo, reduced to a crude canteen->46018]
