I admit that it is extraordinarily difficult for me to speak out in this process of electing the CC candidate for the Presidency of the Government, and at this point in the race it might be convenient for me not to do so by betting on the winning horse, but that's what it means to be a significant public official who almost never hides and I'm not going to do it now either. I only trust that CC will emerge strengthened from the conclave and that both the candidates and their supporters will close ranks without fissures around whoever is elected on the 12th, which I will certainly do the moment the candidate is proclaimed.
What would not be acceptable, neither for those who aspire to unseat the current president as a candidate, nor much less for the president of the Government and the party, is that either of them clung to what in my opinion is a clear statutory error that should be corrected in the next CC congress, which is not to foresee how the issue of candidacies is resolved if no one reaches 3/5 of the votes, instead of simply referring to majorities as happens in other organizations. The mere expression "blocking of a minority" already sounds by definition unpresentable for someone who intends to represent the majority.
In any case, if no one reaches 3/5, which remains to be seen, I trust that both candidates will respect the will that I know both have had and that the island secretaries agreed with the general secretary of the party in their day. That is, that the candidate with the least support in a first vote withdraws to allow the most supported to overcome that statutory barrier, and especially to prevent a situation of "blocking" by a minority from hindering and harming an organization that needs to concentrate its energies in the Canary Islands as soon as possible and respond to the problems of its people.
Regarding that last-minute option that raises the possibility of primaries, I am absolutely in agreement with the development of this formula at all levels. Starting with town councils and passing through island councils until reaching the candidacy for the Presidency of the Government. What is not presentable, nor acceptable because it is unfeasible, is that it is raised now after more than two years without the regulation that should have addressed this inevitably complex process due to the different organizational structures on each island being developed, and that would require homogenizing criteria on the right to vote or establishing correction indices to prevent a single island from deciding. And I say now because, it is not that the proposal is made in the middle of the game, but that we are in injury time to propose a solution that is not such, and that therefore I can only interpret as an alternative for those who are supposed to have less support with the established rules of the game that place the decision in the Political Council.
For my part, and this is an opinion that I have already conveyed to the candidates, I can only recognize that Paulino Rivero has been, is, and could continue to be a great president of the Canary Islands, endorsed by the management of a government that, despite having had to deal with one of the worst moments in history, with what this entails in terms of political wear and tear, maintains more than reasonable levels of citizen confidence and would therefore be a candidate with guarantees for CC. However, I am of the opinion that in politics you have to take risks and even more so in a scenario like the current one in which, listening to the street, I honestly believe that, despite what has been said, the Organization needs a boost in its way of relating to society in general and to the broad social base that supports it in particular; it requires that decision-making processes go through "more party", as far as the limits of operability make it reasonable; for more team, and needs greater consideration to the different island organizations, both in their scope of action and in their quotas of participation in the Government.
Having said all of the above, and understanding that a new team led by a candidate with the profile of Fernando Clavijo could well represent that boost, that is why in the first instance he will have my support in the conclave that on the 12th will have to elect the candidate for the Presidency of the Government for CC.
Finally, I would like to highlight that among Paulino's many merits has been his firm defense of the interests of the Canary Islands against the oil threat when the sensitivity in all the islands and in all of CC I know has not always been the same, and from Lanzarote we will not tolerate the slightest hesitation from any Government of the Canary Islands against this outrage that they want to impose on us from the central Government. This is a maxim that all public officials of the archipelago should engrave in fire, among other things because anything else would never be forgiven by the citizens, nor by me either.
*Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez, president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote.
