Clap, clap. Pedro San Ginés is in luck because Lanzarote is left without fuel bonus. Yes, you read that right. While the rest of the non-capital islands (Fuerteventura, La Palma, El Hierro, La Gomera...) receive aid of up to 25 cents per liter, here they give us a pat on the back and a headline: "It's great news."
Well, Pedro, let's celebrate with you. Champagne or gasoline at 1.05 per liter?
This "cheap fuel party" that Coalición Canaria celebrates is as surreal as inviting someone to dinner telling them that there is no food, but that the important thing is the gesture. Bravo for that brilliant management that turns a right into a privilege and a necessity into an electoral headline.
Let's see if we find out...
Lanzarote does not receive the subsidy because its average price is "below" the regional average. But, what about the social reality behind that number?
Has anyone told Coalición Canaria that Lanzarote does not live in a statistic? That here there are people with miserable salaries, part-time jobs, temporary contracts and rents that ask you for your soul as a deposit.
Has anyone taught them that having the "cheapest" fuel does not mean that it is accessible to the average citizen, the one who leaves half their salary in gasoline to get to work or take their children to school?
Because yes, Pedro, although the INE does not say so, Lanzarote is one of the islands with the highest poverty rate in the Canary Islands, with a brutal dependence on poorly distributed tourism, a shopping basket that scares and a public transport that is laughable (if it were not so sad). What is the point of having a liter of gasoline at 1.05 € if most people earn less than 1,000 a month and spend three times as much on getting around?
The circus continues... and the Cabildo applauds
The Cabildo, of course, joins the hype. And announces that it will "continue to monitor prices." Thank goodness. I am more relaxed knowing that there is someone in the watchtower with binoculars watching how the marker goes up or down.
What about direct aid? What about strengthening public transport? What about its own energy policy that does not depend on whether the barrel goes up or whether Repsol decides to be nice?
Because what has been lost here is not just a subsidy. The opportunity to alleviate the pockets of those who need it most, to combat territorial inequality, to use public resources to benefit the people, and not to fill press releases has been lost.
The sad thing is that they want to sell it to us as a victory
Coalición Canaria, as always, selling smoke and wrapping it with a smile. They have done it with healthcare, they have done it with housing, they have done it with tourism... and now also with gasoline.
Because if they are good at something, it is celebrating misery as if it were gold, and telling you not to complain, that you could be worse off.
No, gentlemen. Lanzarote is not for empty cheers or for salon speeches. Lanzarote is for them to look at it head-on, recognize its shortcomings and return to it, at least, the dignity that they steal from it every time they come up with a stroke of genius like this.
