Last weekend we celebrated the V National Congress of Nueva Canarias in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. For the first time in the 17 years of life of our formation, Lanzarote and La Graciosa have a real weight in the highest national bodies, the Tagoror (Executive) and Sábor (General Assembly).
Since I started my political career with Nueva Canarias, I have been clear: Lanzarote and La Graciosa need a Canarian option, with committed profiles to face the socio-economic and socio-sanitary effects resulting from the pandemic such as unemployment, mental health, home care, unwanted loneliness, health improvements, strengthening of the third sector, etc. An organization where they leave autonomy to work according to the insular and municipal reality, but without renouncing a common country project where the taking of strictly Canarian decisions prevails.
During the last two years Nueva Canarias has made a firm commitment to strengthen the organization in Lanzarote, giving full confidence to the human group that we have been weaving in each local committee and island secretariat. I am aware that there are many difficulties for citizens to trust a project or a political organization, and let alone try to convince someone to participate as a militant. It is normal, for decades our island (for me, the most politicized island of the archipelago) has experienced numerous episodes of corruption, defection, inactivity and lack of parliamentary unity, which have generated an authentic social frustration against political activity and politicians, where the general feeling is that there is an elite of public officials who seek economic remuneration rather than exercise public activity for the sake of the general interest.
However, in Nueva Canarias Lanzarote we have joined a group of honest people with a vocation for public service who come from the health sector, social services or education. A human group of women and men also dissatisfied with the political practice of Lanzarote, who take a step forward to build a project where the care of people is at the center of political action. Caring, that is the main idea that drives our proposals.
What the human team that comprises Nueva Canarias Lanzarote agrees on and is completely sure of is that the success of a political project at the island level is based on freedom of action. Since I assumed the secretariat of welfare in Lanzarote, together with the rest of the colleagues, we have had total freedom to arrange appointments and meetings with groups and associations, without any filter or argument that would tell us what to say. Not only that, but also, without Nueva Canarias-Lanzarote having any parliamentarians in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, we have had strong support from the parliamentary group to raise our proposals at the autonomous level, such as, for example, the Arrecife III Basic Health Zone, the Mental Health Subunit, or the third medicalized helicopter for the eastern axis.
Until just over a year ago, the organization only had the local committee of Arrecife, where our only public official, Armando Santana, has been doing a great job as councilor of commerce and tourism in the government group of the town hall, as well as its entire Local Assembly. Thanks to a great organic effort of analysis, strategy, organization and recruitment, we are currently strengthening the island project with the Local Committee of San Bartolomé, Haría, Teguise and, soon, Tías.
The result of all the above is that Nueva Canarias Lanzarote is beginning to be a key player in the new political cycle that is beginning, within the Canarian space and as a governing force.
This is corroborated by the macro survey conducted by the newspaper Canarias7, which reflects a result for our organization of two councilors to the Island Council of Lanzarote and a parliamentarian for the island constituency to the Parliament of the Canary Islands. Although it is a snapshot of the moment and we must be prudent, it is certainly an incentive to continue on the marked path and adding to "people who move for people".
Finally, I do not want to close this article without mentioning that strengthening Canarianism in Lanzarote and La Graciosa and, ultimately, throughout the state, requires assuming democracy as a substantial form of political activity. It is, neither more nor less, to be aware that public officials and organizations must set an example with their actions; to be at the forefront of civic and public attitudes. Therefore, today, in this article, I want to leave in writing that I believe in a Canarianism that is a wall of containment for those who wish to cut off the rights and freedoms of our people; who want to take us back to the past where the Canary Islands was a mere province, a region of its only and inviolable Spain. No, we will not give oxygen to far-right forces at the local, island or autonomous level. Let those Canarians or nationalists who play at ambiguity be there. For my part, no joke about this.
An Island-Home must have as its main mission to care for the person through the strengthening of public services, of the pillars of the Welfare State. But, as politics is a strictly human activity, we must build free societies, where everyone fits, regardless of their sexual identity, their skin color, their nationality or language. The island in which I want my son to grow up has a green heart shape: green hope that beats with deeply democratic roots.
Yoné Caraballo, Island Secretary of Welfare in Nueva Canarias Lanzarote.
