Dear Ángel,
In my political career, I have held multiple Organizational Positions in the Popular Party, from Insular Secretary of Studies, Training and Programs or President of the Insular Electoral Committee for 10 years, to President of the Party in Costa Rica, a position equivalent to Autonomous President, passing through Regional Positions such as Secretary of the Regional Electoral Committee or a relevant National Position such as being a member of the National Board of Directors. I have also been part, as a Public Official, of two Powers of the State; both of the Executive Power when I was General Director of Security and Emergencies of the Government of the Canary Islands and of the Legislative Power when I was an Autonomous Deputy.
Precisely, being General Director of the Government of the Canary Islands, back in 2004 and after the general elections in March, the climate among the partners of the Government of the Canary Islands became enormously hostile and one day in June, the President of the Popular Party of the Canary Islands, who at that time was President of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, summoned all the senior officials of the PP of the Government of the Canary Islands and proposed the voluntary resignation, justifying it as political dignity. No senior official of the PP in that government coalition hesitated to present President Rivero with the irrevocable resignation and we all argued the same cause: political dignity.
I am sure that nothing of what has been said sounds strange to you, as you have also demonstrated political stature on different occasions. I offer as an example of this the phrase "the Popular Party does not allow itself to be used for internal struggles", pronounced by you when you were leaving a Plenary Session of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, dignifiedly staging one of your numerous disagreements with the despotic President of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés.
So what has happened now?
Ángel, you have gone from selling sonorous clashes with San Ginés to giving him oxygen; from brandishing a furious opposition to his management, to governing with him. Your embrace to the questioned President, questioned even by the Justice, was so incomprehensible, unexpected and badly carried out, that even the Councilor of the PIL and Vice President fled, giving you and your two companions a lesson in style. Overnight you became Vice President of the Cabildo and forgot how bad San Ginés always was, according to your own countless statements, for the interests of Lanzarote. But that brand new vice presidency has lasted you as little as the re-entry of the one who held it before, who after his decision to return in the same conditions as he was, you have fallen even lower, if possible, your already meager image.
But I am going to be the one to answer the question asked above, that is, I am going to answer what has happened for all these unprecedented changes to have occurred. What has happened, Ángel, is that your political dignity was shipwrecked in the sea of ambition of the President of the PP of Lanzarote. Astrid Pérez wanted to be Mayor of Arrecife and believed that with the support of San Ginés in the Cabildo and the hypothetical reciprocal support of CC to her desire in the capital, it would be enough to drag other municipal forces towards the achievement of her personal objective. So much cunning for nothing, since in Arrecife and despite the fact that CC continued to support the idea that Astrid was mayor, which is very unlikely, no other Party would do the same; I insist, no other political Party would have supported, supports or will support the ambition of your boss.
At this point, I am going to give you a lesson in political vision, something for which I consider myself more than authorized by my extensive Organic and Public experience, in addition to belonging to the same Party to which you belong. From the outset, the Cabildo issue should have been managed completely independently of the Arrecife City Council. The negotiations should have started from the premise that the Cabildo should be presided over by someone from CC, because it was the most voted list and because at the island level there is no substantial reproach to the balance of management of that political Party, but someone who was undoubtedly not Pedro San Ginés. In other words, Pedro San Ginés cannot continue where he is, since his own ways have invalidated him for it; I am one of the very many convinced that the current President will end up being judged and convicted of prevarication. CC should have been offered to continue presiding over the Cabildo, without San Ginés, with PP and PIL or, if they had refused, a motion of censure supported by everyone to remove the current President and leave CC out. Of course, the PP should have been in both options as well as having led the entire negotiation. As a result of the negotiations outlined to achieve stability in the Cabildo, dispensing with the current President, the possibilities that Astrid Pérez could have been mayor would have been considerable.
Because the PP is not the miserable and exclusive cage of crickets that your boss, and her team, show in Lanzarote, the PP is the Party that launched Las Palmas de Gran Canaria into the 21st century, is the one that eliminated the inheritance and donation tax and is the one that maneuvered in advance in the Canary Islands against the crisis when others denied it. It is also, at the national level, the one that overcame the two socialist ruins of the last twenty years and the one that has placed Spain as the engine of growth of the EU and a paradigm of job creation. All that extraordinary political capital, which any other Spanish Party would want for itself, demands from all its Organic and Public Officials a high level of vision that Astrid Pérez, you and your companions have thrown to the ground in Lanzarote.
From now on, more care and due dignity.
By Sigfrid Soria
