Party presidents, grassroots activists, public officials and opposition representatives are interviewed daily on Radio Lanzarote, and therefore there should be nothing strange about Fabián Martín speaking on the ...
Party presidents, grassroots activists, public officials and opposition representatives are interviewed daily on Radio Lanzarote, and therefore there should be nothing strange about Fabián Martín speaking on the program "Buenos días Lanzarote". However, that interview has unleashed a real earthquake in the PIL. And not because of what he said, no way. Simply, for having agreed to speak with this media outlet.
And it is that although perhaps some listeners have not noticed, or have not missed them, the truth is that the president of the PIL and all the members of the party had been close to two years without agreeing to speak with this media group. They even agreed to this veto in a Political Council, prohibiting all its members from speaking with Radio Lanzarote and La Voz. According to them, reporting on scandals and legal cases such as Operation Unión, speaking out firmly against corruption and being critical of those who do not condemn it, was an attack on the PIL. They will know why.
During this time, this house has continued to call on the members of the PIL to participate in interviews and even in debates held during the electoral campaign, to which all parties were invited, but they had systematically rejected these invitations. Until Tuesday of last week.
And the curious thing is that those who have been most outraged by that decision of Fabián Martín, are precisely the members of the PIL who never agreed with that veto, and now they have seen how their president skipped it without any consultation or organic decision. Those who have been dissatisfied for months with the line that Dimas' son is drawing in the party. Those who once again chant the same phrases that have been heard so many times in the history of the PIL, marked by crises and stampedes of affiliates and public officials. They say again that decisions are made unilaterally, that "external" people (that is, Dimas) are the ones who decide in the party and that there is no internal democracy.
But what respect can a party have for democracy that decides to veto a media outlet because it does not like what it says? What can a party that is capable of taking such a caciquil decision to a Political Council know about democracy? What attachment can public officials have to democracy (when the PIL still had them in almost all institutions) who refused to answer questions from these media, as if their City Council or their Ministry were also a farm that they did not have to account for except to those they wanted?
In any case, this is simply an example of how the PIL works and has always worked. And what is striking is that at this point, there are still militants and public officials who leave saying exactly the same thing that those who left long before said. What any citizen of Lanzarote knows, even being outside the PIL.
In other times, the great crises of the party have coincided with times of bonanza. With those times in which they governed in practically all the institutions of the island, holding the presidency of the Cabildo, several mayoralties and even seats in the Parliament of the Canary Islands and in the Senate. And there, someone always came out who, taking advantage of the supposed weakness of Dimas, who has spent the last decade in and out of prison, believed that he could take real control of the party.
Now, however, the scenario is different. This time, Dimas decided to put his own son in charge so as not to have any more surprises. But a year and a half after the Congress that led him to the presidency, the party is almost disappeared, both in the institutions and in the public debate, with the exception of the last oxygen that CC has given him with that attempt at a nationalist alliance for the 20-N.
However, even that has been a reason for discord in the PIL. The discontent is evident and there are even many militants who have transferred it unofficially to the journalists of this house. And the fight now is not only to dispute the leadership. It is because there is less and less to dispute.
In this context, more and more people are considering the mistakes of recent years. The repetitive song of "maintaining Dimas' legacy"; the cloying little hearts of the electoral campaign, which were indigestible even to lifelong pilistas; the disappearance by their own will of two media such as Radio Lanzarote and La Voz; and continuing to convey messages as if the people of this island were foolish or still had a blindfold on their eyes.
The breeding ground is sown and it is evident that a new crisis is already walking in the PIL, but the context now is so different that it is difficult to know how it will end. And it is that currently, the reality is that the PIL does not have the strength to live a real civil war like the old ones, because there is very little left of the party.
