Coalición Canaria, with Oramas as its star spokesperson, has once again provided us with an unsurpassable exercise in cynicism, impersonation, and imposture. And all because of the Congress's approval of the Reform of the Statute of Autonomy.
If it is "a day of happiness", we have to thank Coalición Canaria for delaying this great event for more than 10 years, for its exclusive partisan interest.
It is public knowledge that, more than a decade ago, Coalición Canaria requested and achieved the withdrawal of this Reform of the Statute --because, fundamentally, it is the same-- due to the panic caused by the possibility that the electoral system would be democratized by the Cortes Generales. Trying to make us forget that, in the 1996 Reform of the Statute, they took advantage of the Cortes Generales and the weakness of the first Aznar Government to approve the still-current electoral system, the cornerstone of the Coalición Canaria Regime.
The electoral system that has prevented democratic alternation, enshrining the irresponsibility of the Government, and degrading what should have been a pluralistic political system into a hegemonic party system.
Secondly. To affirm that with the new Statute "a new people" is born, which is the son of the "new modern nationalism" --which has postponed such a happy birth for more than a decade-- is a falsehood and a usurpation. No matter how much they dislike it, from the Preamble to the drafting of the key articles (such as the one that incorporates and outlines the concept of ultraperipherality, or the "shielding" of the REF) are present the contributions, the letter and even the style of many deputies who do not feel identified with that self-styled "modern nationalism", alias of Coalición Canaria, although intensely with our condition as Canarians. This is as easy to demonstrate as comparing the original texts and those incorporated by the committee of the Parliament of the Canary Islands during the Sixth Legislature.
As identified with our Canarianness as committed to the Canary Islands, that is, with the rights of the Canarian women and men. And with the defense of the identity of this land, starting with its most telluric sense: that of the defense of Canarian nature, especially threatened by the Land Law that the builders and real estate developers have imposed on us --through Clavijo and company--.
Thirdly. This Reform does not place us or recognize us as an autonomy "of the highest level". Simply because we already are, since the approval of the LOTRACA together with the Statute of 1982. And, definitively, since the 1996 Reform. Unless what makes the difference are novelties such as the early dissolution of the legislature or the power of the government to issue decree-laws.
The fact that the Canary Islands, in intensity and quality, does not enjoy the highest level of self-government has had nothing to do with legal-statutory deficiencies, but with the plague of bad governments that we have suffered for too long. Those who have turned us, not to go on, into the second autonomy in which it is cheaper to hire workers or into the chronic red lantern of Spanish public health. And the main responsibility for all that terrible legacy has a name and surname: Coalición Canaria.
Fourthly. And, as a cherry on top, Oramas makes a display of the hysteria and lack of scruples of ATI in the face of its difficulties --due to its own wear and tear and the resilience of the PP and the irruption of Ciudadanos-- to keep the entire space of the right in Tenerife demarcated in the local and regional elections, as they have been doing since 1987.
Oramas dixit that the new Statute "does not fish in the poisoned waters of secessionism". This statement, unworthy of a person of culture and democratic convictions, is like an X-ray. It is one step away from literally reproducing the language of Francoism. Let's see: secessionism or the claim of independence of a territory is not poison. It is a legitimate and respectable ideal. What can be poisonous is trying to impose it violently, or breaking the constitutional order and coexistence between the people and towns of Spain.
I don't even ask him to go with that song and dance to convince Clavijo to abandon his not-so-distant bet on the "Free Associated State" --which he himself doesn't know what it is-- "even if that is independence, what fear is there?". Because he has the right to continue defending it. Unless he has fallen off his horse in his incessant procession in this pre-election year.
Continue competing desperately with the PP and Ciudadanos. But between the Canarian nationalism that they presume and the language more typical of the Spanish authoritarian right that Oramas uses with real delight, they are a mess.
Supplicantly. And a request: to the Canarian democrats, who believe that the Spain of the Autonomies, the unity, the plurality and the solidarity of its lands and its people are full of meaning, do not give us a hard time with their charades. That is not much to ask. Or is it?
Santiago Pérez.
