May 30 should be a day to vindicate the Canary Islands. But, above all, to do so from the awareness that another Canary Islands is possible. With pride in what we are, but vindicating what we want to be. Being clear about the causes of the situation we are in, and the possible solutions.
The current model of the Canary Islands, built over the last 30 years, has failed. In every sense of the word.
We know the data very well. The most shocking: 44.6% of people at risk of poverty, condemned to more than 20% structural unemployment and with public services at the bottom of Spain, as well as in precariousness and wages. Of course, we are always in the top positions as one of the places with the most corruption in the entire State.
And this, logically, has direct culprits, and they are those who have governed us during this time. Sometimes, it seems that they want to convince us that everything that happens to us is caused by a divine curse, as if when distributing the tarot cards we had drawn the hanged man.
And no, we are as we are because of those who have governed us this time, not only in the Canary Islands, but also in the State. And we must change them, and demand more responsibility from our rulers.
But we must not forget something that is more relevant than ever: our political system has an original flaw caused by the most unfair and disproportionate electoral system in Europe. A system that encourages this insularity of which we are victims, and that causes such serious imbalances as a party with 5,000 votes holding an entire Government hostage.
An electoral system that was born, supposedly, to compensate the non-capital islands for their situation, and that 30 years later has only managed to ensure that precisely these islands continue to be the ones that live in the greatest situation of poverty, and increasingly isolated.
We live in a situation of exceptionality that they try to sell us as normal. Precariousness is covered up with institutionality, and we feed on sterile debates so as not to talk about the serious problems that affect our population.
The solution involves a change of electoral system as a first step to build this new Canary Islands, which understands our land as one, something that should make us stronger.
We want an archipelagic identity, far from rancid insularity. The Canary Islands as a cohesive people, the Canary Islands as a nation.
Because the solutions also involve a new State model that gives another territorial fit to our land. One that increases sovereignty, so that we can manage our resources without having to beg in Madrid, in each General State Budget, to claim what corresponds to us by right (the Constitution itself speaks of the fact that the insular fact must be especially recognized).
We believe in Podemos Canarias as a key tool to achieve these reforms.
The territorial model of our party is clear: "a country of countries".
And we vindicate our Canarian homeland as one of those countries. Without fear of sovereignty as an essential piece that builds our future. A better, fairer and more supportive future.
We already know what has not worked for 30 years: the current model. And staying without doing anything, pretending and agreeing until the situation explodes, is not going to solve the serious problems that our land has.
Far-reaching, ambitious reforms are needed that respond to the hunger for the future that our citizens have. We owe it to ourselves.
And to finish, nothing better than a phrase from Nicolás Estévanez: "if one day the borders and nationalities disappeared, only then would we stop being Spanish, but not even then would we stop being Canarian."
Noemí Santana Perera, General Secretary and parliamentary spokesperson for Podemos Canarias