There is a belief based on the reality of many years that after an election all parties win. Everyone turns the tortilla as many times as necessary so that it ends up falling on the side that interests them. Giving an example of what has just happened in the general election, the Popular Party says that it is happy because it has won the elections (ignoring the enormous support lost) and the PSOE assures that they are happy because most of the citizens who have voted have not done so to the PP, which means that the men and women of this country are clamoring for a change and do not want the populars to govern. Of course, nothing is said about the worst result in the history of the PSOE.
So it seems that everyone can justify their failures with the greatest possible dignity and kick the ball out on their own responsibilities.
Well, I have not won the elections, and trying to sell another story would be disrespectful, something I will never do.
When my party, Coalición Canaria, proposed me the challenge of running as number two to Congress for the province of Las Palmas, I was perfectly aware of the magnitude of the project I was getting into. I knew that they were televised elections marked by what came out in Madrid, and that there was little or nothing that the nationalists of the ultraperiphery could do at a party to which we had evidently not been invited. But I believe that one has to be in politics through thick and thin, and if we had to give our all to ensure that the needs of the Canarians were heard in Madrid, I was going to be there. We had to try, and we tried.
I felt deeply grateful to my party for thinking of me for a challenge of these characteristics; that they thought that I could transmit in the best way all the ideas that we had in Coalición Canaria to improve the lives of all of us who live in this Archipelago. That they believed that it was a feasible option in an impossible scenario comforted me, made me think that I should give everything to return a trust that at my age I never thought I would reach.
I tried, as I believe the rest of my colleagues did, but it was not possible. Without wanting to evade responsibilities, there was something that was worse than I thought. I believed a few months ago that we were in a moment of change in terms of the way we all saw politics, but I was not fully aware that there was something that had not changed, the TV. I did not imagine that although there was talk of the end of bipartisanship, the way of focusing the programs of maximum audience was going to do so much damage to those of us who were not going to have even a second of glory. The result of the work has been devastating, indisputable and even plausible for those who in my opinion are denigrating democracy. Because they have turned the search for support into a kind of spectacle in which we saw every minute of their lives, of the leaders of those parties, and never of ours; of the local candidates, we knew little or nothing in some cases. For the big television networks, plurality is a very particular concept. Thus, much more in these circumstances, winning elections in places like Lanzarote, territories in which their representatives are directly elected, escapes all logical predictions.
Coalición Canaria was David in December and the four great Goliaths, and this time, unfortunately, Goliath won. They crushed all of us who thought that the small could win the giant.
We have not achieved the expected results. Fortunately, we have Ana Oramas, who will continue fighting for all Canarians, and will continue to be our reference in the Congress of Deputies. I bet something to whoever wants that for four years or what this uncertain legislature lasts no one else will get the problems of the Islands talked about in the Lower House. But that seems not to matter to many of those who live down here.
It is clear that in addition to the TV we have a very serious problem in Coalición Canaria, in Canarian nationalism. I don't know if the formula involves a refoundation from the base. What I do know is that not a single day can pass without those of us who want to defend the interests of this land from a formation that only responds to the dictates of this land getting down to work. I think it is no longer enough to lick our wounds and let other local elections come that fill our lungs with oxygen. We must work from now on in formulas that make Canarian nationalists approach electorally to what Basque and Catalan nationalists achieve. I have ideas about it and I will pass them on to my party, and I hope that my colleagues have even better ideas than mine and we will be able to turn around a situation that must change radically in a short time.
And once the chapter of self-criticism is done, comes the one of thanks. I want to thank all those who on December 20 went to vote and actively participated in the construction of the future of our country. I want to thank all those who bothered to know all the proposals they had on the table and in an exercise of responsibility voted for those they believed would be the politicians who would best defend our interests. And I want to thank with all my heart all the citizens of Lanzarote who supported the proposal of Coalición Canaria, and especially all the neighbors of Teguise. I know that there were people who believed that I would do a good job in Madrid, although others thought that if I left I would neglect the affairs of my municipality. Never, and I want to make that very clear, I thought of leaving Teguise in second place; on the contrary, I thought that I could achieve the best for my land and by extension for all of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands.
I want to thank my colleague Marci that knowing how difficult it was for him he put the same desire and the same illusion as me to achieve the impossible. To all my party colleagues who have worked in the campaign, who have left their soul so that we have been the island where Coalición Canaria has obtained the best result, which is not a coincidence.
In short, thanks to all and here you have me, as always, willing to continue working for all of you in the City Council of Teguise and in Coalición Canaria from the best Committee that anyone could wish for.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2016.
Oswaldo Betancort, Mayor of Teguise
