Reflections on the past regional and local elections

June 9 2019 (23:36 WEST)

From my unjustified confinement, an unprecedented event in the Canary Islands, and I have the impression that in the rest of Spain, which will be said in due course in my book "The Truth", I have followed with special attention, and why not say it, with great nostalgia for not being able to participate, the development of the successive electoral campaigns, national, local and regional, their results and now the struggle between the different political forces to form the governments that have to administer us during the next four years.

The sovereign people have expressed their will at the polls and we must respect and abide by their mandate, although some results seem disconcerting to us, such as the surprising absolute majority of the Mayor of Teguise or the broad support obtained by Mr. Pedro San Ginés for the presidency of the Cabildo.

The first because Mr. Oswaldo Betancort, in Teguise, has done nothing throughout his years in office that makes him worthy of such bulky support. In one of my permits, from the reclusion to which I am subjected, I had the opportunity to visit each of the towns in the municipality of Teguise and the feeling that I brought is that time had stopped in it since that distant year 1991 in which I left the mayor's office. Mr. Oswaldo, like those who seconded me in office, has dedicated himself to living off the inheritance received without even applying the appropriate maintenance or, at best, finishing some of the projects that I left initiated.

It caused me deep sadness to see the state of deterioration in which the Agro Industrial Complex is located, an emblematic work designed and executed to be the great revulsive of the primary sector of our island, which all politicians talk about but which no one cares about. The decadence of Costa Teguise, with unfinished works that are eternalized in time giving an aspect of complete abandonment; the construction of a prefabricated public school that says a lot about those of the rest of the municipality and what the teachers and schoolchildren of the area deserve; the eternal work of the promenade that lasts longer than the wall of the border of Mexico with the USA; the absence of a true plan to improve and modernize part of its accommodation plant and leisure facilities that make the place more attractive; etc.

Mr. Pedro San Ginés, despite having presided over the first island institution for a period of ten years, has been unable to promote the major projects that our island still suffers from and that is conditioning its development: the Arrecife ? Playa Blanca axis that not only solves the traffic saturation problems that already occur, but also speeds up the mobility of heavy traffic destined for Fuerteventura, enabling trade between both islands; there is still no feasible solution for the runway and the expansion and modernization of the passenger terminal of our airport; our port lacks an adequate passenger terminal where cruise passengers can take shelter and facilitate the operations of tour operators and other agents operating in it; Lanzarote still does not have an adequate congress palace / auditorium; the much touted and necessary highway that has to connect the Arrecife ring road with the road to the beaches that decongests traffic with the airport and Playa Honda, has not been talked about again; the traffic congestion that occurs daily in the accesses to the industrial and commercial area of Playa Honda has not been given a solution nor is it expected; the much publicized bicycle lane that connects the main points of our island outside the traffic routes is still a chimera; the burial of the high voltage electricity transport lines of Endesa, which in its day under my presidency began with the execution in the year 1991-1992 of the one from Yaiza to El Golfo, Punta de los Vientos- Mácher substation, Los Valles Wind Farm ? Inalsa, Punta Mujeres ? Cueva de los Verdes, its continuity suspended unjustifiably when there was a prior agreement; the unfinished work of the Islote de la Fermina, so many times resumed and so many paralyzed; the abandonment of the historical and unique cultivation of cochineal ?unique in Europe- that brought so much wealth to the island's agricultural economy; the connection of Arrecife with Puerto del Carmen, through Playa Honda, by means of a specific public transport that runs along the coast outside the highway; neglect in the embellishment of the edges of the roads; inability to approve the revision of the Island Planning Plan (P.I.O.), which is essential to maintain a sustainable development of the island; inability to promote and promote a remodeling plan of the accommodation plant, obsolete especially in the municipality of Tías; and a long etcetera impossible to capture in a short article.

Mr. Pedro San Ginés does have an unavoidable and inexcusable obligation to fulfill: to explain to the citizens of Lanzarote the intricacies that surrounded the awarding of a good so sensitive and decisive for the survival and development of our island as are the assets of Inalsa to Canal Gestión.

Lanzarote, under the presidency of its Cabildo of Mr. Pedro San Ginés, has gone from being a benchmark island at national and international level to practically ostracism, and due to his trajectory and achievements at the head of the first island institution, he cannot morally pretend to be re-elected through an initial motion of censure. The legislator, when he introduced the motion of censure in our legal system, did so thinking that serious problems of governability or events that altered the good and normal functioning of the institutions could be corrected, but not so that he could censure those who have not had the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity or incapacity. Mrs. Loli Corujo ?whom I do not know except for a fleeting and commented greeting years ago in Los Dolores-, as the most voted candidate for the presidency of the Cabildo, should be given the opportunity, for a reasonable time, to demonstrate whether she is worthy of the trust that is given to her. Otherwise, there is time for the motion of censure. The opposite would be a serious mistake like those made in the past, including those of the one who subscribes.

The P.P., with its situation as a political arbiter of the main corporations of the island, has the great opportunity ?and not necessarily participating in the governments- to design and mark the policy to be applied that returns dynamism and illusion to our city and island.

The residents of Arrecife have disapproved of the current mayor for her inability to face and solve the serious problems that affect our city. Mrs. Eva De Anta, I think, has been a victim of her own colleagues and especially of her advisors. On a personal level I have to thank her for the visit she made to the Center where I am confined, the only politician who did so, which allowed me to meet her personally and chat with her for some pleasant, relaxed and, I would dare to say, friendly minutes. Arrecife has put its destiny and hopes for a better future in the hands of the young Echedey Eugenio, his party and those who support him in the governability of the municipality, and to whom I wish the greatest of success in his difficult task.

Not all the responsibility for the deterioration of Arrecife should be attributed to the current mayor, because the disastrous performance of Mr. Manuel Fajardo Feo as Mayor has had a lot to do with it and, if not, let him explain why he paralyzed the works of the Integral Neighborhood Plan. Perhaps because it was a great work of the P.I.L.?

The past local and regional elections have left us with several reasons for reflection: that the modification of the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands that introduced the regional list with nine new parliamentarians has not served to prevent the formation of the regional government, either of rights or lefts, from passing once again through the minority groups, although it has corrected the island electoral ceilings from 30 to 15%, a ceiling promoted at the time in a tortuous way by C.C. to prevent the rise of the P.I.L. to the Canarian Parliament; that the non-attendance of the P.I.L. ?Party of Independents of Lanzarote- to the past local and regional elections considerably altered the electoral results; that the citizens of our island do not endorse with their votes the behaviors of disloyalty, defection, betrayals, opportunism and to those who live off politics and, if not, let them ask Mr. Ramón Bermúdez, Mr. Manuel Cabrera, Mrs. Gladys Acuña, Mr. Luis Arráez, and so many other children of the P.I.L.; that before the possibility that an alternative regional government to that of C.C. is formed ?something that I wish- it will be interesting to check how long the cohesion of this formation in the opposition lasts, or if we will witness its collapse in the short term, and if they have been occupying the nationalist space that their performance does not correspond to.

By Dimas Martín

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