"Less Photos, Little Red Riding Hood"

December 16 2022 (19:35 WET)
Updated in November 8 2024 (07:28 WET)

That phrase "less talk, Little Red Riding Hood" that we use daily to point out or identify exaggerations or attributions that do not correspond, could perfectly be mutated to one that tries to signify the growing competition that sits in the day to day of the island's political class.

It is common, when opening the digital press of the island or the social networks of our public officials (may no one be upset), to see photos of the mayor of Arrecife or the president of the Cabildo in the same place and making the same announcement with only one difference: the press offices of both institutions strive to change the active subject of the verbs to award, project, claim or plan.

It would seem that, barely 5 months before an election, both leaders are striving to sell as their own actions or interventions that, if we delve into the content of the news, remain mere commitments that neither one nor the other will see fulfilled in the present mandate.

The houses of Maneje, the works of Manolo Millares street, the improvement of Tenderete street or the rainwater works in Portugal street, are clear examples of this. News announced on different days by both institutions claiming as their own works that are not even scheduled to begin in this legislature. A photographic reality that does not coincide at all with the daily scenario that the people who reside in Arrecife live in our streets.

While Loly and Astrid, Astrid and Loly, are fighting for the photo of what will come with the headline in the wrong verb tense, in Arrecife we continue walking on unfinished sidewalks, driving our cars on unpaved roads or walking in the dark at night through streets that flood every time it rains to go to our homes, for which we pay more and more rent, while we pray not to stumble and avoid having to go to a health center that only exists in their headlines.

And this is their policy: that of Loly and Astrid, Astrid and Loly, a policy of misleading headlines, grandiose photos and the daily fight to see who gets one more "like" on social networks for actions that are not real and realities that their eyes of president and mayor, mayor and president, are equally matched, will not see in this mandate.

And finally, the final firework. It cries out to heaven, or wherever it is necessary, that administrations that lack their planning instruments, pay their invoices to suppliers badly and late or neglect their most essential social services, hire advisors and trusted personnel with profiles of photographers, cameramen or community managers with the only requirement of training or curriculum of carrying a card to be a candidate of the party in turn to any administration. Without a doubt, it says a lot about the priorities of those who sign their appointment decrees.

Thousands and thousands of euros of everyone's money that, instead of nurturing the administration with lawyers, economists, urban planners or social workers who seek solutions to the problems of our city, make available to Astrid and Loly, Loly and Astrid, puppets and useful marionettes to their interests, who portray them well in the photo and write them nice comments on social networks.

Astrid and Loly, Loly and Astrid, teach us every day that the important thing is not Arrecife or even the citizens, but to appear that many things are being done and that it is each of them, and not the other, who is the executor.

What memories of those times when politicians inaugurated things, opened spaces or started services, days when the photos were a reflection of the work and evidence of new realities and not artificial constructions of a reality that only they and their well-paid and useless advisors live on (adjective referring to the little utility that their professional and work profiles have for the citizens, understand me well).

And I end as I began with that phrase "less photos, Little Red Riding Hood". Astrid and Loly, Loly and Astrid, less photos and, please, work to help Lanzarote and Arrecife out of the closet in which Little Red Riding Hood and the wolves have them locked up.

 
 
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