Learning from past experiences is a basic rule of life. Continuous learning comes to us with the situations we have to live through. It is our obligation to gather successes and failures, to know how to act? But it seems that many have forgotten this simple rule. We have settled into the politics of continuous tension, constant insults, and the destruction of the adversary. Some seem not to have realized that the situation is so complicated that the least helpful thing at the moment is confrontation.
In the State Government, we are not very clear about who the visible head is. Excessive and confusing information through press conferences and interviews, making the serious mistake of announcing things without having the issues closed and then trying to solve it with a "where I said say, I say Diego", blurs the leadership.
So day after day, week after week, generating distrust, which is the worst thing that can happen to a society: not having a minimum of confidence in those who make the decisions.
In the Government of the Canary Islands, it gives the impression that they are not very clear about what lines need to be implemented, and the dismissal and resignation of the Ministers of Health and Education in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis cannot go unnoticed either. At the most difficult moment of the pandemic, the autonomous government fractured, ending with the departure of both.
The fact that the people chosen were not the most suitable for managing the crisis is the worst thing that could have happened to us Canarians. In politics, there are no immediate answers, and we have had to go through a serious health crisis to realize that the decisions in the election of the people responsible for both ministries and their teams were not the most appropriate.
As for its relationship with Madrid, we see that the Government of the Canary Islands is becoming more and more complacent when what it has to do is raise the level of demand.
Our Archipelago is an outermost region within the European Union, and we have our Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) that has been fixed in the Constitution and the Statute. Since the times of the Crown of Castile, our political and economic singularities have always been recognized, based on our situation of remoteness and insularity. There is no more powerful reason that marks our Atlantic Archipelago; you cannot treat the one who is different the same. For this reason, we need to be more assertive in Madrid. Our measures must be different because of our circumstances.
In the Cabildo of Lanzarote, on the other hand, silence has been installed as a response by the Government, and they have forgotten that in the first institution, the creation of a multidisciplinary, technical-political table is entirely feasible to jointly and specifically address the different actions that must be implemented on the island.
It is obvious that the health situation did not become as severe as on other islands and that, in general, it was always under control, but not so much because of the actions of the island government, but rather because we have been very fortunate that things here did not have greater consequences.
The reality is that the Government of the first institution was never in check because of Covid-19; the difficult part is coming now; an evident and complicated economic situation is complicated for several reasons. The first, because we depend on tourism; it is 50% of our GDP. The second, because we need to know what our degree of indebtedness will be and know what we can use from the surpluses of the island Cabildo.
What is obvious is that the income and transfers of this year from the Cabildo will drop drastically. We all know that the recovery of tourism will be slow, no matter how much the borders and airspace are opened. We also know the consequences that this will have on the sector and everything that depends on it: employment, with young people being the most affected again, transportation, shops?
The panorama is complicated on the island, and now more than ever, we must work together, but this does not only depend on building bridges full of good intentions. It depends on all of us having the will to want to do it, from the place that corresponds to us, but working together, and, as I have said on so many occasions, in the Cabildo it is feasible because we are four parties: two governing and two in opposition. It would be so easy...? But when you come to power loaded with so many grudges and so much desire for revenge, everything becomes very difficult.
Wasting energy on looking for what was done well or what was done badly, instead of focusing your efforts on finding solutions to the current circumstances, is wanting to mask your management. Even more so, when part of the successes and failures that may have taken place have had the participation of both the PSOE and the PP, because we have governed in pact with one and the other.
This selective amnesia of wanting to erase this part and focus everything on what was and not on what we are going to do is typical of a government that is not very clear about what the political lines are. In addition, they are joined by the contention that both parties have at the state level. How is it possible that this government can be maintained when the statist lines of their parties are so opposed? How will they be able to maintain the demands of all the people of Lanzarote and Graciosa before the State without having friction between them?
What is evident is that the rulers who believe they are self-sufficient and think they do not need others to get out of an unforeseen situation have not understood anything of what has happened.
Today more than ever, everyone is needed to get out, with the fewest number of blows, of a situation that affects each of us.