You already know us. We have been in the streets for years, demanding rights, denouncing injustices, proposing, organizing all kinds of actions. We have not emerged from nowhere a few weeks before the elections to try to occupy a little position in the heat of a powerful new electoral brand.
We were protesting when filling the fridge was a luxury, because two unique food franchises agreed on prices and shared the loot at our expense. We called demonstrations, made noise, collected thousands of signatures to repeal a Canary Islands Commerce Law tailored to a few.
We created spaces for criticism and debate on the networks. We disseminated the most scandalous corrupt practices, publishing important fragments of the Unión Case. We went out with our posters every Friday, calling the corrupt corrupt, while we helped prepare the 15M at the state level, in whose manifesto we collaborated.
More demonstrations, more shouts, more hands up, more "there is no bread for so much chorizo"... until we realized that the shouts and protests were not enough. Those who were the object of our slogans entered through one ear and left through the other. We had to enter where the corrupt were and evict them by force of votes. We had to win the institutions.
Ganemos Lanzarote in Arrecife is the logical consequence of 15M. We are the logical consequence of a political system that has reached unsustainable levels of corruption and decay, with collateral damage that we all suffer, every day. We are not here for pleasure, nor for personal interest. We are here because we feel obliged to do something to change things.
There are many of us, undoubtedly a majority, who have realized that political parties cannot continue to function as they have until now, subject to clientelistic, opaque and authoritarian logics. But one thing is to see the problem and another is to find the right solution. Some think that simply putting young faces in front of old projects everything is fixed. Others believe that a new brand, by itself, will work the miracle of regeneration. But those of us who have been facing this issue for years, and have probed its depth, know that much more is needed to solve it.
The problem of corruption is actually composed of thousands of interconnected microproblems. The networks woven for decades cannot be unraveled overnight. Clientelism is not just a problem, it is a culture. A culture that can be changed, but very slowly and with very specific measures applied by individuals with firm convictions and who have shown not to be intimidated by external or internal pressures.
It is a titanic task and an enormous effort that is posed to us, as a society, if we really want to put an end to the culture of backroom deals, cronyism and commissions. But if we decide, we need to put citizens at the forefront of regenerative projects who are very clear about what the problem is and are mentally prepared to apply the solutions that are required. In this sense, what determines the value of people is not their words, nor the words that are said about them, nor the brand under which they are sheltered, but their trajectory and their actions. And you already know us.
Leticia Padilla, candidate of Ganemos Lanzarote in Arrecife for mayor
