"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." The mythical phrase of Groucho Marx seems to be reviving in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, although also adding a peculiar variant: "These are my ...
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." The mythical phrase of Groucho Marx seems to be reviving in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, although also adding a peculiar variant: "These are my technicians. If you don't like them, I have others." And it is that no matter how much the president, Pedro San Ginés, tries to justify the changes he has introduced in the technical teams of the Corporation, it is difficult to believe in coincidences. And even more so when the people he has removed from the middle or relegated by putting a hierarchical superior over them were evidently annoying for certain business sectors on the island. For the same ones to whom San Ginés shouted to the four winds, in the middle of an institutional act for Tourism Day, that we must not "demonize".
Literally, since he is so bothered that they try to interpret his words, he said that "public officials must not only count on, but be proud of our business fabric, instead of demonizing them." But before this, the question would be: who is being demonized? Of course, on this island there are businessmen to be proud of. Those who are honestly leaving their skin to try to overcome the crisis, those who risk their capital and generate employment, those who comply with the rules while they see that the one next to them does not? And of course, we must also be proud of the self-employed, the workers on foot, the waiter who with a smile and good treatment manages to make the tourist take a better image of the island.
But it would be absurd to think that the president of the Cabildo was referring to them, because no one would dare to question, much less "demonize", all those people. The message, obviously, was directed to others. And in that he is also wrong, or rather, San Ginés tries to confuse. Here the question is not whether there are devils with tails and tridents among the business class of the island. What it is about is that there are alleged criminals, who are accused of having paid politicians to favor them and even break the law. And that, no matter how much the president dislikes it, who says it is Justice. Therefore, pretending that we are "proud" of accused businessmen who have illegal hotels open to the public is too much to ask even for him.
In a year that he has been in the presidency of the Cabildo, it gives the feeling that one of the things that has most occupied the president is clarifying his own words, correcting the media and preventing them from trying to interpret what he means when he launches some of his coded messages. And of course, he takes the cake in the territorial issue.
At this time, the big question is to know what are and what are not really his "priorities". Since he came to office, accused of being behind a "business lobby", he tried to convey that he was going to park the issue of illegal hotels until the next legislature. Now, he clarifies to exhaustion that what he said is that they were not going to address the legislative initiative that the previous government team had raised. An initiative that aimed to provide a solution to the issue, regularizing what could be regularized, in exchange for compensation from businessmen to the general interest, in the form, for example, of land deliveries for public facilities. Apparently, that is what was not a priority. And the excuse is that there was no "consensus" on the matter. Another euphemism for not saying that this option is not liked by the current government team, or by certain businessmen.
However, a little more than seven months before the end of the legislature, it is not clear whether the president does intend to seek that regularization through other channels. A few months ago, he resolved the controversy of the Jameos del Agua elevator by changing the head of Heritage, because the technicians had paralyzed the works considering that an attack was being committed against the BIC. Now, the doubt is whether we may not find new surprises, with the island director that he has appointed to be above the members of the PIOT office, for the modest salary of 70,000 euros per year, to work part-time. A fact that is also striking, because if what is intended is to decongest that department, overloaded with work, and not simply put someone to "control" the technicians, at a minimum a exclusive dedication would have been bet on.
Many believe that with his latest steps and statements, Pedro San Ginés is making perfectly clear what his objectives and his true priorities are. But if he had nothing to hide, the least that could be asked of him is that he explain them clearly, especially to the citizens. And it is that if his objective is to change the path and the consensus reached in recent years in territorial matters, the inhabitants of this island have the right to know, especially when that turn is going to come from the hand of a president who the voters did not vote for, since he did not even present himself heading a list (in fact, he was the third).
Another of Pedro San Ginés' litanies focuses on criticizing the PSOE for "arrogating the role of sole defender of the territory". However, it seems that he is the first determined to grant them that role. And it is that every time someone advocates putting a stop to cement, for the respect of the territorial rules that were approved in their day by unanimity of all the parties represented in the Cabildo or, simply, for compliance with the law, he ends up calling him a socialist.
The question is whether he really believes it, or if it is a strategy to think that he only receives criticism from one sector, when in reality the fronts are multiplying. And it is that where Quixote saw giants, San Ginés seems to see socialists. For months he began to see them even in some of his party colleagues in Lanzarote, but judging by what happened in the last week, he may now also imagine Manuel Cabrera himself with a rose and a closed fist, or even the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, if it occurs to him again to say that the mayor of Haría "is where he has to be when he defends his own".
Now, we should ask San Ginés to stop thinking about what others say and do, and start explaining clearly where he is, and what he defends.
