Someone once said, referring to the transition from ATI to Coalición Canaria, that the party of "friends" had ended to build a powerful political force. The first time I heard it, I kept thinking. Because I wasn't very sure that ending friendship is an important achievement, a modernity or a strength.
A few years ago, almost all the people who militated in the emerging Canarian nationalism knew each other, appreciated each other and respected each other inside and outside the borders of the party. We were neighbors, citizens who were fighting for our islands to have their own voice. But above all, people who felt close and friends with other people who were fighting by their side, shoulder to shoulder. Over time, political contamination has increased.
Political parties have become full of rust and a few have turned politicians into people under suspicion; people guilty in advance until they prove their innocence. Fernando Clavijo is not only the candidate of Coalición Canaria for the presidency of the Government, he is the mayor in whom I left the responsibility of governing La Laguna, my city, my cradle, knowing that I was leaving it in the best hands. He is the sensible, hard-working, serious friend; the colleague of corporation and party with whom you can always count on in good times and bad.
Fernando is that person who tells you the truth to your face without disguises, even if it is unpleasant. The one who gets angry with the lazy, with the indolent, with those who have no commitment, with those who want to shirk their responsibilities. He is the friend to whom you can entrust the course of a ship because you know that he will give every last drop of his loyalty to the task.
When Fernando Clavijo was charged with the revenge of a businessman of the night, who had been sanctioned by the City Council of La Laguna, I felt much more than sadness, anger and fear for the punishment that was being applied to a party colleague who was going to be a candidate for the presidency of the Government. I felt the indignation that invades you when someone does something bad to someone in your family. And I also felt confidence. Because I know who he is. Because I know how he does things.
From minute one I was convinced that Fernando Clavijo was going to be able to prove his innocence beyond any doubt. Because Fernando is a person who follows a straight path in public and in private. Anyone whose conversations are tapped for months and months is put in a position to suffer irreparable damage.
When you speak in intimacy, you express yourself in a totally different way than when you do it in public. Fernando has survived the unfair, cruel and illegal media dissemination of his political and personal conversations. He has survived the ordeal of a legal process that has put him in the headlines of all the newspapers just when he was beginning his path of renewal of Coalición Canaria and his candidacy for the presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands. When many thought that he could not bear that burden, he has shown that he is capable of moving forward, of fighting and of demonstrating the falsity of the accusations that were imputed to him.
For some, political parties are still a place where friends fit. People who appreciate each other personally and who feel affection for their colleagues. People who do not betray each other, who tell each other to their face the criticisms for the mistakes made and who always act with loyalty. People who help you not to deviate from the good path. People who push you in moments of weakness. Because when you are up, in power, you have plenty of friends. But when it is not like that, when the difficult hours arrive, it is when you need a hand to hold you and a voice to encourage you to continue.
A long time ago, in the garden of my old house in La Laguna, some friends met to talk about the future. We met, in reality, to talk about Fernando. Because we thought that Coalición Canaria had lost its way. That it was moving away from the people. That we should go back to the streets and listen to our neighbors. And the person in whom we all thought should lead that great change was Fernando Clavijo. Because he was the strength, the drive and the capacity in which we knew we could trust. Today, once again, he has filled me with pride. Because he knew how to fit the injustice, the inopportuneness and the evil of a vengeful denunciation. Because he knew how to react to the judicial accusation that exposed to all the media the most private part of his life. Because he put the cards on the table from the first moment and transmitted the conviction of his innocence. Because he showed his face and went out with his chest uncovered to give the battle that he has just won.
If anyone had any doubt that Fernando is the type of leader that Canarian nationalism needs and the president that this land expects, they should no longer have it. Not only because he has been investigated and his innocence has been proven, but because he has demonstrated that in the darkest and most difficult moments he is capable of maintaining the serenity, the temperance and the good sense of a good ruler and a better person. From now on we already know that Fernando Clavijo is that good man that the Canary Islands needs.
Ana Oramas, "friend and colleague of Coalición Canaria"