I am a very practical person, and I am going to get straight to the point, because we are not in a time for long speeches but rather for stating realities.
Think of someone in your family who has been waiting for dependency aid for months. Your son or your niece, who works, earns their salary and cannot leave home because in Lanzarote an apartment costs more than a thousand euros a month. The teacher who gets a position in a school on the island and cannot find even a room. Do you have them in mind? Well, that's what November 29th is about.
Those people don't care if the person sitting in Madrid is from the left or the right. What matters to them is whether they are remembered. And experience tells us that when decisions are made in the offices of state parties, whatever their color, Lanzarote and La Graciosa are left as a footnote.
More than 1,500 kilometers from here, there is a seat in the Senate with the name of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. The question is simple: do you want someone who votes what they are told in Madrid to occupy it, or someone who is only accountable to you? Canary obedience, one hundred percent. That is our commitment.
That is why on this occasion Coalición Canaria, Compromiso por Haría, the Movimiento Renovador de Tinajo, and Yaiza Siempre are joining forces. They have had differences, of course, and they don't hide it. But when what is at stake is the island, the differences have been left at the door and responsibility calls for unity, for looking out for our land as no one else will. It's about Canarias.
And for that seat, they have chosen me, Daisy Villalba Perdomo, as an independent, without affiliation to any of them, but a nationalist and with the feeling of always defending my Canary land and its people.
And who am I? I am a social worker by heart and vocation. I have spent my professional life working in the social services of the Arrecife City Council and the Cabildo, in child protection, with women victims of gender violence, in the Canary health service, and with people with disabilities. I know what it's like to assist a mother who can't make ends meet, a boy who turns eighteen in a care center and has nowhere to go, a family that has been waiting for an assessment for months. Children who have nothing and no one else in this life or who have been forced to mature due to the suffering experienced in their childhood. In this way, I am not going to Madrid to learn what a need is. I know.
And now I am going to save work for those who are already preparing criticisms.
They will say that Daisy comes from another party. It's true: I was a councilor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote with Nueva Canarias. I never took a leave of absence or earned a councilor's salary, not because I couldn't, but because practicing my profession always came first. I left my position to take my place as a civil servant due to incompatibility and later left Nueva Canarias, due to inconsistencies with the exercise of my professional duties. Today I present myself as an independent, without anyone's party card. That is not changing my allegiance. It is just the opposite: it is someone who is not ordered around by any party and who is moved by what is a priority, which right now is the defense of my Canarian land.
I understand that some may be bothered that a social worker, with real experience and proven training, returns to politics without any party affiliation. But I am returning precisely for that reason. To do politics, outside of party disciplines and private interests, it takes someone to open the door for you, and Unidad Canaria, formed by Primero Canarias, Coalición Canaria, Compromiso por Haría, Yaiza Siempre, and Movimiento Renovador de Tinajo, has opened it for me as an independent. And do you know what advantage I have? The social aspect is people, citizens, and as one of them, I don't understand colors or positions, I understand facts.
This nationalist union has made it possible for a person who comes from the sector and who knows social services from the ground up, to run to serve the people of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. For me, politics is that: service and construction.
They will say that this is a pact of acronyms. I answer them with a question: how many times have we from here divided ourselves so that in the end outsiders win? This time we have decided not to.
They will also talk about our elders. What I have to say here is that: our elders deserve to be cared for as we would care for our own parents. For that, we need more places and more staff, better paid and with time to do their job well. What we build today is where we will be cared for tomorrow. It is called foresight, it is called well-being, it is called social justice, and it is called dignity! That is what I will defend in the Senate, the negotiation of a dignified and fair state dependency agreement.
And they will tell me that in the Canary Islands, dependency is managed by the Canary Islands Government. That's true, and we also have pending tasks there. But the State must contribute its part, which the Canary Islands deserves, and with budgets that have not been approved since 2023, it is difficult to consider that the State is complying. One more thing on the list to fight for in Madrid.
The Senate cannot be a retirement home for politicians or a place where a party's orders are voted on. It must be the place where someone from here defends the people from here. I know public services and the system from the inside, social and socio-health resources, and in Madrid, that is what we need to convey: reality, the day-to-day.
I am running to take to the Senate what I have seen throughout a professional life in social services. And when the campaign ends, if I do not reach the goal, I will continue where I have always been, working for our elderly, people with disabilities, minors, young people, and adolescents in vulnerable situations, because I am not looking for a political seat, I am looking for the opportunity to change things.
So think again about that person in your family. The one waiting for help, the one who can't find a home, the one who works and can't make ends meet. On November 29th, you can send someone to the Senate who thinks of them before any party directive. Who thinks of the Canary Islands and its people before a position of right or left.
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