It has only been three years since I joined the organization that I have the honor of presiding over today. At that time, I was a nurse and trade unionist who did not aspire to positions of any kind. My only ambition, and the one that continues to motivate me every day, is to improve the health of Lanzarote and La Graciosa and essential public services.
Looking at it in perspective, it would be insincere to say that I have not changed. It has been three years in politics, which, although a short time compared to the average number of years that most politicians dedicate to this activity, I can say that they have served to ratify my commitment that politics is the best mechanism to manage social conflicts and the best and fastest way to influence decision-making. Now I can affirm it in the first person.
With the values and principles of the first day, I assume the responsibility of directing and planning an island organization such as Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista in Lanzarote and La Graciosa, which has shown that, despite the obstacles, the tripping, the media invisibility and the lies, it is and will continue to be more alive than ever as the fourth political force in the Canary Islands and Lanzarote.
We begin this new stage with a renewed and broad island executive. 18 women and men who will be responsible for projecting the ideas we defend, proposing alternatives to the increasingly irrational conservative policies and working for the construction of an island-home. That is precisely our source of inspiration, to imagine the island that we all long for, more friendly, greener, more sustainable and with more economic and cultural opportunities. An island that is the home where you feel happy.
Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista in Lanzarote and La Graciosa will continue with a style characterized by programmatic overflow, innovation in social issues and serenity. They will not find us putting on shows of political tension. They will not see any Canarianist leader disrespect anyone or looking for "uproar". They will not find us there and that is the first thing I have mandated to the new island leadership.
To build that island-home we must take care of the forms and political attitudes both inside and outside the organization. Lanzarote is an island where its political ecosystem is corrupted. Doing politics is sometimes a high-risk activity that alienates people from public affairs. That is why what NC-BC has achieved in just a few years is so meritorious, building an organization from the bottom up with new militants and public officials who have stepped forward even risking their own personal lives.
Marcos Lemes, Daisy Villalba, Pablo Yebra, Arminda Barreto or Fernando Jiménez among so many others that I cannot mention due to lack of space, have not had godfathers. They have not come out of the domes of a large party with power and money. They have been forged as activists and militants are forged, from commitment and altruism. On many occasions giving up spending family time and combining politics with work activity. Leaving their jobs to run to the few radio talk shows that are still plural and count on us. Or leaving their children with their grandparents to meet with an association or group.
Because, I'm very sorry, I don't trust those who haven't been through activism. Who have not fought against power. Who have not raised their voices. Or have not been involved in social action before being public officials.
And this is precisely what NC-BC has, social and collective commitment. We are defenders of the idea that the evils that happen to us have public answers. That we are stronger in the sphere of the collective than in the individual. Even more so in an island environment where the benefits and shortcomings practically affect us all equally, although the social gap is becoming more and more pressing.
In short, NC-BC is entering a new organic configuration that will begin to bear fruit in a few weeks with the launch of the Arrecife Local Committee. One of my objectives as island president is to implement a solid and lasting project in the capital that offers a new way of doing politics and generates proposals to improve Arrecife, which needs a true policy and, most importantly, a true renewal of leadership. I am sure that we will find the people who will lead that project and make the people of Arrecife rediscover their port identity.
Without further ado, I invite all the people of Lanzarote and Graciosa to get to know NC-BC, its ideas and proposals. Many will know me as the "helicopter nurse", the one for mental health or the one who keeps saying that "time is life". I hope that from now on they will also recognize me as the one from NC-BC, the organization that imagined an island-home and managed to implement it.
