Start by thanking the citizens for their support, who gave their vote to the confluence of Unidas Sí Podemos. Thank all the members of Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Sí Se Puede for all the work done during this electoral campaign.
We were running for more institutions than ever: the Canary Islands Parliament, island councils and almost half of the town councils. And we have not reached the planned objectives either in Parliament or in the island councils, in addition to losing presence in the town councils, in some even all of it. In electoral terms, a defeat without qualifiers.
We could point out, among others, three possible causes: the generalized rise of the right and the far right throughout the State; the presence in the Canary Islands of a competing force, which did not want to be part of the confluence and divided the vote of the transforming space; our own mistakes, not knowing how to reach the citizens in a convincing way, who decided to withdraw their support.
And suddenly, without time to assess the results and recover from the setback, President Sánchez calls General Elections for July 23 and imposes a new calendar of urgencies to recompose ourselves and reach agreements without consideration.
Learning from what happened and recovering quickly is the duty we face; because the unequivocal message from the citizens is that they want to see us together and strong, to feel represented and to be excited again as they did eight years ago and four years ago.
May the finger not prevent us from seeing the Moon. The question is that at this moment, if possible with more force, what is being decided is to continue in a modern democracy, with all its defects and imperfections, or to return to savage neoliberalism, to lose rights and freedoms and to totally weaken the Welfare State.
Therefore, the objective is to consolidate a state government of progress, with a greater presence of the transforming forces, which requires the presentation of a unitary candidacy in the Movimiento SUMAR platform, as a state force and, at the same time, with that same confederal character, to strengthen and expand the existing confluence in the Canary Islands, with all those organizations that want to be part of said platform.
The threat of regressing in rights is present there: labor, economic, social, feminist, political, climate justice rights continue to be questioned by the ultramontane rights, which promise to repeal everything.
And in the face of that merciless attack, of setbacks and attack on the public, of privatizations and loss of rights, of endangering democratic values, we have the obligation to stop the right and not take a step back.
And the only way to do it successfully is to run united in these elections on July 23 to Congress and the Senate.
Learn from what happened and commit to the construction of a confederal space, in which the different organizations can feel comfortable, without anyone needing to lose their identity; coordinated at the state level and making autonomous decisions from each of the territories.
A broad space, without corsets, where we are capable of agreeing on actions and political work in all areas, organized in assembly and participatory democracy in each place, on minimum agreements, with stable mechanisms of coordination by consensus, both in the territories and at the state level.
The state coalition government must always be pushed to comply with what was agreed, from mobilization. And for this it is necessary to be organized and united, recovering political action and citizen struggle. This is a collective task, where personalism has no place. We are all necessary and no one is essential. The candidates owe themselves to the project and the social contract, the program, which is signed with the citizens.
Program, unity and coordination in a common space of confluence.
In short, high-mindedness.
Manuel Marrero Morales. Member of the Autonomous Citizen Council of Podemos Canarias