I would be lying if I said that I do not intend to gain your trust for the upcoming elections, and that this article does not have that intention, but I ask you to be brave, to be brave, not to be carried away only by the heart, to use reason and to look beyond acronyms, to think that Lanzarote and La Graciosa are at a crossroads. Our islands need courage, we owe it to them. Making decisions is difficult, but if we make them after reflecting, analyzing, remembering, we will not make that decision in a risky way and in some cases, recklessly. No one will ever be able to say that what I am about to tell you has not happened.
And I say reckless because with the truth in hand it cannot be that those who today are so great proposing measures that they have not done during their years in office appear before you today with a backpack of non-compliance as if nothing. They are also experts in this game of thimblerig because they are apparently facing each other, Loly and Pedro, PSOE and CC, who have governed the longest in democracy in the institutions, but who will agree again if you give them the opportunity as happened in 2012 and 2015. If you want more of the same, that is the way.
Meanwhile, I do not resign myself, and I point out that they were the ones, with names and surnames, who adopted each and every one of the measures that have harmed us, or those that have reduced us in infrastructure, or in social policies, or in tax matters. Didn't they buy the House Museum on Fajardo Street together, closed after 6 years? Weren't they the ones who implemented the fuel tax, the famous cent per liter to improve roads? Weren't they the ones who modified the conditions of the integral water cycle contract to save the salaries of 18 politicians from their parties with their assets for the negligent management of INALSA? Weren't they the ones behind the underwater museum that has not generated the expected income? Weren't they the ones who have forgotten about the residences for the elderly such as the one in the south of the island and the one in Cruz Blanca? Haven't they been the ones who kicked down a private property, seizing it in the purest Bolivarian style? Aren't they the protagonists of the breaches of the PIOT, PRUG and the Special Plan La Geria?
And so an important sum of disloyalties and breaches.
But I am not one of those who criticize for the sake of criticizing, nor of making parallel judgments, nor of those who, due to partisan use, are not able to see the successes of others. What's more, despite everything that has been said, the island has advanced in recent years, not at the rate it should, but it has advanced somewhat, perhaps also due to the help of supra-island administrations, but even so, are we satisfied? Is this the island that we would leave to our children? Can we aspire to more?
The answers to these questions are in your conscience and in your final decision. Of course, I have only been in politics for 4 years and I have no breaches, I have learned how an administration should not be managed. I experienced it closely with CC and PSOE in the Arrecife City Council with the support of Cs. Let's not forget, with the support of Cs, which in Lanzarote has proven to be a fraud by placing itself next to the always and even, at one point in the legislature, indulging in trying to agree on a motion of censure in the Cabildo with Podemos and in Arrecife preventing the change that you have so much demanded from Eva de Anta (PSOE).
I not only have a brave and experienced team that enriches me. I have for you, for our island, a brave program, a program that puts La Geria, the artisan salt flats, fishing, livestock, in short, the primary sector, on the starting line. We will do it for real, without half measures, I don't usually fail my people.
A brave program in social services recovering one of the measures most forgotten by the "media kings of social welfare": the socialists. I am talking about the residence for the elderly in the south and the residence of the Cruz Blanca. Brave, in this case, lie of the PSOE and CC who have been in charge of that area for the last 9 years without even awarding either the project or the works. For us, residences for the elderly will be a priority.
As brave is my position on our tourism model. I will initiate measures to encourage tourist spending on the island, I will try to fight to modernize our accommodation plant with new measures, avoiding the monoculture of tourism by approving the Island Territorial Planning Plan and generating industry and economy around renewable energies, thereby achieving economic diversification to strengthen our island economy and prevent it from suffering the ups and downs of tourism.
Therefore, I ask you to be brave and if you want change, vote for change; if not them, Loli and Pedro, stay. Give me a chance. Thank you very much.
Jacobo Medina, candidate of the Popular Party to the Cabildo of Lanzarote and La Graciosa
