This week it was time to take stock of the year we have been at the head of the Government of the Cabildo of Lanzarote. We held a press conference in which we broke down each and every one of the issues that in record time we have been able to carry out in these 365 days. That is why I already warn anyone who bothers to read this that it is not another management report, that I am not going to name practically any of the achievements we have obtained. The Quixote has already been written by someone else. First of all, current affairs rule. I have to congratulate my colleague Marci Acuña for everything he has done in this time, for demonstrating that we were not wrong in my party when we asked him to return to get the Social Welfare Area out of the dark hole in which other irresponsible people had put it, and also congratulate him for trying this weekend to solve the big problem with the immigrant minors who are under the guardianship of Lanzarote and the people of Lanzarote. Demagoguery aside, grandiose denunciations with headlines that do not conform to reality, the only thing certain is that my colleague is breaking his back to do something that should have been done many years ago. The treatment being given is adequate within the circumstances we are experiencing. Neither Lanzarote nor the Canary Islands can take this burden for another minute. Whoever wants to understand it, let them understand it. It is a priority that we can resolve this before focusing on the other or otherwise our overwhelmed social services will die suffocated by the problems.
If we were to run in an election tomorrow, I understand that people would be clear about it. The non-sectarian, those who have eyes and ears to see and hear, would bet on us for sure, aware that we have changed the political dynamics of the island of troubles and we have focused on management, on people and on results; we have brought peace, tranquility and harmony, we have buried the ghosts of the past and we have certainly made it clear to the staff that accompanies us on this wonderful adventure that, rowing all together and with desire, we will create a better Lanzarote, we will leave those who come after us a better island. We have decongested everything that was paralyzed, we have projected endless new and good things for the future of our people and we have achieved things that for others seemed impossible, such as the closure of the Albergue de La Santa or the tender for the new residence of Tahíche. Planning, transport, scholarships, water, environment, sustainable tourism... Everything is where and how it should be. I am convinced that people would give us the majority confidence again, I insist, improving the previous results by far. And in one year we have done much more than our predecessors did in four, which was rather little or nothing. They left the bar very low, obsessed as they were with destroying everything that smelled of Coalición Canaria or Pedro San Ginés, but it is no excuse for not achieving the goal we have set ourselves, to make people see that if you want, you can, that excellence in politics can be achieved, that the Cabildo of Lanzarote is an ocean liner that with a good captain and a good crew should not only reach port but should do so in style. I trust that if all this has been done in one year, in four years things will get out of hand.
I still remember as if it were today the stick that some people gave me for how long my speech was when I took office as president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote. Absolutely justified stick, I have to say it a year later. The reason why the speech was so long is that my people and I wanted to reflect in a few minutes, it is clear that we went too far, how much we wanted to do, the illusion with which we assumed a very complicated challenge, the enthusiasm with which we wanted to raise the morale of troops that were sunk in misery... A year later I will not make the same mistake and I will try to be brief to explain the present and the future.
In the 18th century, when the foundations of the main democracies of the world were created, the absolute power of some leaders, mainly kings, was censored by many citizens. It was said that in theory they did everything for the people but without the people. We, of course, are doing everything for the people but with the people. It is one of the main assets of our Government, citizen participation, knowing how to listen to the people. We learn from them and we work with them. The Cabildo has become a super town hall, the neighbors already go there to talk to us without protocols or stupidities, aware that when they arrive there will be someone who will listen to them and who will try, within their possibilities, to solve their problem.
No one, much less I, has the absolute truth. Now, from there to allowing those who have done absolutely nothing to set the pace with their entanglements and their miseries is a step. I will not allow it. My political adversaries are obsessed with the Oswaldo Betancort brand, much more than any of mine, who at least promote it with affection. In each note, in each speech, in each intervention in plenary, if Oswaldo here, if Oswaldo there. They even complain that I do not argue with them, they call me "mere moderator"... And what do you want me to tell them, I am. I have not come here to waste time in absurd discussions that lead to nothing, much more when the vast majority of the things that the opposition asks us are part of the bulk of issues in which we are already working. I understand the role they play; they must understand that I am not what they expect. I have not come to argue, I have come to work.
They are not aware that the secret of my success in Teguise was based on the group, on the team. People did not vote for me, they voted for the work that I led. And that work was not done by me alone. With me there was always a group of women and men with clear ideas and with the same desire that I had to do things. That was noticed and the people were endorsing it election after election. In the Cabildo I have found the same thing, an incredible group of women and men from Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular who are giving the best they have, who respond to the level of demand that I impose on myself and impose on them. They know, as I know, that we have much to do in very little time, and that it is not easy. The current administrations despair the most patient of living beings. Not everything comes out as we would like it to, time is another time. But if you don't even try, it is clear that things are even worse. And that is my political colleagues, to whom I add the staff of the Cabildo, who are surprising me enormously. It is evident that we would need more people, that the departments are understaffed, that we must face the challenge of increasing the staff, covering sick leaves and retirements. However, with the people I have met I have discovered that their human and technical level is far above what others have said in the past. The staff of the Cabildo only needed some affection, a concrete direction, a daily purpose and stimulus for their work to bear fruit, not to go every day to manage the routine. I take my hat off to them.
I made many promises in the election campaign and I have practically fulfilled them all. Now it is time to continue rowing in the same direction, without distractions of any kind. There were many people who took to the streets on April 20, some of them only to bulk up and appear in the photos, to imply that the problem of housing and tourist overexploitation is of those who had been in power for a few months. Their concern was only on the 20th. I was concerned about the 21st. The day after the demonstration, a Sunday, the committed team that surrounds me was solving problems and planning what is to come. Also in what has to do with the territory, with tourism and with that that those who like to talk have handled so much and then do nothing of what they talk about when they have the command in place, sustainable development. I was concerned about the 21st because those who only try to obtain political benefit from citizen mobilization will continue to put obstacles so that the tools that will allow future generations, the generation of my daughter, to inherit a better land do not go ahead. And for it to be better it is necessary to plan, it is necessary to regulate, it is necessary to declassify, it is necessary to bet on public transport, on renewable energies, on the diversification of the economy... We, my team, do not need anyone to pressure us, that no one shows us the way. I insist that we have it very clear, without a map and without anything. We want a truly sustainable Lanzarote, a Lanzarote in which the people who visit us leave with a smile, a Lanzarote in which people have employment, in which the wealth generated by tourism reaches all those who collaborate in its development. We want a Lanzarote committed to public transport, to renewable energies, to control over public and private works. We want a Lanzarote with less cement and more green areas, with more bike lanes and fewer roads... And that is what we have worked tirelessly on this year and that is what we will continue to work on in the years to come.
We have recovered the pride of belonging to what is the third island of the Canary Islands. Because above all, my deepest desire is that the people of Lanzarote, the people of Graciosa, feel proud of the place where they live: Lanzarote and La Graciosa, the most wonderful islands to be happy.