CC wins the elections, PP the pacts

The elections of May 22 seemed to leave a path drawn for an agreement that could have extended throughout the island, with Coalición Canaria as the protagonist, and with a partner to "choose" between the Partido ...

June 20 2011 (14:10 WEST)

The elections of May 22 seemed to leave a path drawn for an agreement that could have extended throughout the island, with Coalición Canaria as the protagonist, and with a partner to "choose" between the Partido ...

The elections of May 22 seemed to leave a path drawn for an agreement that could have extended throughout the island, with Coalición Canaria as the protagonist, and with a partner to "choose" between the Partido Popular or the PSOE. However, the reality of the negotiations has left a very different scenario.

CC has lost its cards and has ceded the triumph of the negotiations to the PP, which has managed to retain the Mayor's Office of Arrecife, as well as that of Tías, and govern in Teguise and perhaps even in Yaiza, if finally the support given by the popular councilor to Gladys Acuña ends up serving her to enter the government group.

In addition, they have managed to get Coalición Canaria to take them seriously in the Cabildo. And it is that after the constitution of the town councils, who began to be in a hurry to close an agreement in the first institution was CC, which came out scalded from what happened in Arrecife. In fact, the PP did not hesitate to publicly warn the nationalists that the same thing could happen to them again in the Cabildo. And it is that although a priori a motion of censure to Pedro San Ginés seemed almost impossible, since the PP, the PSOE and the PIL would have to unite (with whom the socialists have said they will not agree), from CC they could no longer risk ruling out anything.

In fact, overconfidence could have been their biggest mistake after 22-M. They knew that they were the preferred partner for the PP and the PSOE, and that with either of them they could govern in almost all the institutions. They opened negotiations on several fronts, kept their possible partners in uncertainty and even disconcerted their militants, by bringing forward the inauguration of the Cabildo without having a closed agreement, and by sealing different alliances in Teguise and San Bartolomé, in one case with the PP and in another with the PSOE.

They thus ruined the possible island pact, and maintained uncertainty about a vital plaza, Arrecife. In fact, three weeks after the elections, they arrived at the plenary session to constitute the new capital corporation without having opted for one of the possible options to agree. And in the end, they were surprised. With a real bucket of cold water that tarnishes their electoral results, as prominent public officials of the party on the island have begun to publicly acknowledge. And it is that with the privileged situation they had after 22-M, they could hardly have come out worse off. They could hardly have managed their electoral success worse.

In three weeks, Coalición Canaria managed to anger its possible partners so much that, in the end, it ended up bringing them closer together. And it is that, of the possible agreements that fit in Arrecife, certainly the least likely a priori was the PP-PSOE that has finally prevailed. And that made things also uphill in the Cabildo, where they have had to offer much more than they expected and intended to close an agreement with the PP.

In any case, why they have been left out of Arrecife and Tías, where the PP finally chose to agree with San Borondón, and why they have complicated their lives in the Cabildo, will be internal explanations that they must give in the party and, in any case, to their voters.

For the rest of the citizens, the important thing now is that the majorities that have been constituted begin to work and, above all, that the parties stop focusing on the murky machinery of the agreements and forget any temptation of strategies to remove armchairs.

In this sense, the panorama in which the island has been left is not too encouraging, since if instability is an almost perpetual cross for Lanzarote, it seems even more difficult to maintain five different agreements on the island, as has happened in the town councils without a majority. The PP agrees with the PSOE in Arrecife, with CC in Teguise, with San Borondón in Tías and perhaps with the PIL and the PNL in Yaiza. Coalición Canaria, with the PSOE in San Bartolomé and with the PP in Teguise. And all this, while in the Cabildo there is a CC-PP alliance, and in the Government of the Canary Islands another CC-PSOE.

Of course, a much more complicated puzzle than the one initially left by the polls, and that can be a real time bomb, but also a cushion that at least avoids cascading ruptures. In the inaugurations, yes, everyone promised stability and agreements for four years. If only to vary, let's hope that this time they do comply.

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