For those of us who have had some curiosity or followed the island and capital politics of the last 30 years, this déjà vu smells rotten. The story that repeats itself with different actors but in the same place, the same political direction and the same objective smells rotten.
It smells rotten that it is the same people who have been delaying planning in Lanzarote and Arrecife for 30 years, clinging to peregrine excuses, and who intend, once again, to delay the approval of the planning documents for this island and its capital.
It smells rotten that there are mayors who start but do not finish the procedures, councilors who direct one thing and then allege endless territorial commissions with no other purpose than to delay, councilors who prepare a document and then criticize it, orchestrated and directed media campaigns to paralyze and sow doubt about documents they have known for months, and sequences of news to try to evidence "false attacks against the territory", and law firms that rub their hands for lawsuits that they will be putting to the institutions, or defending them in other cases, with succulent contracts, for having obsolete documents in force that violate the rights of citizens and fail to comply with the regulations and laws approved later.
It smells rotten that it is the same media and groups that once after another crumble the proposed documents to look for false jackpots or announce environmental apocalypses that are proven over time to have never existed.
It smells rotten that it is an organ of a political party and its all-powerful puppeteers and not the citizens, nor their representatives who decide whether or not a procedure advances.
It smells rotten that those of "the new politics" debate in cafeterias and various offices with the usual puppeteers about the documents that should govern the evolution of this society, which before and after them has demonstrated its commitment to the island and its values above those who only proclaim it.
It smells rotten that it is always the "same" ones who want to make the decisions and those who refuse to advance, clinging to a false defense of the territory.
It smells rotten that we return to the starting point of this legislature and that, instead of talking about the future, the model or the capital or island, we talk about who exposes the document, who knew it first or the roulette of loyalties.
It smells rotten that the same ones who defend the transparency of the document are the ones who do not want it to be known, and it smells rotten that they are the same ones who, in some way, have made their friends and related media arrive before the rest, some documents that they reproach others for exhibiting to everyone.
It smells rotten that certain media outlets have been dissecting aspects of the documents for months, which supposedly no one had, by chapters and always looking for the same excuses, alluding to false landscape attacks and spurious interests that, perhaps and only perhaps, are precisely what they are trying to cover up with those publications.
It smells rotten that they do not think about the residents of Los Diseminados, the people who need social housing or the needs of health, educational or social infrastructures in the neighborhoods or that they do not break down in fascicles how the Island Plan makes possible the camping areas, the agricultural or livestock land, the large island infrastructures, the rally circuit, the solution to the access to the airport or the global planning of the road map.
But, above all, IT SMELLS ROTTEN that no one ever answers the question of WHO IS THE ONE WHO WINS WITH THIS ISLAND AND ITS CAPITAL NOT ADVANCING?
Lanzarote, Arrecife and its citizens deserve NOW modern planning documents, adapted to the legislation and that cover their needs. That give an answer to the historical problems of this island and its capital and that the institutions lose the phobias to initially approve some documents, being aware that the only thing that this means is that people will be able to know it and allege what they deem convenient.
IT SMELLS ROTTEN THAT SOME CONTINUE IN THE PHILOSOPHY THAT EVERYTHING REMAINS AS IT IS SO THAT THOSE WHO ARE WELL, CONTINUE TO BE SO.
Nothing changes if nothing changes…
Echedey Eugenio, Councilor for Territorial Policy