The year 2018 started off hot in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, those of us who are still a bit new to the matter look with some perplexity at the masked balls that this year were even ahead of Carnival. January came in with certain controversies and tensions, the atmosphere became rarefied, and so, as if an invisible clock was accelerating the rhythm of time and events, we got into February.
In Parliament the tension is increasing, many of its members seem to be waiting for an imaginary gong that at any moment gives the starting signal to an election campaign that is still more than a year away.
Those of us who are new to these struggles must have silly faces, please excuse the mistakes of our inexperience and believe that we strive - we receive intensive courses, the truth - to understand the rules of the game, and understand the tremendous differences between what is said and what is done, within the parliamentary sphere.
And so we get fully into the process of preparing for the mobilizations and demonstrations of March 8, and in a practical debate on Equality, in this case on the application of our own laws when choosing the people who will integrate three bodies dependent on Parliament, the Court of Auditors, the Common Deputy and the Advisory Council.
We are novices, it is true, and perhaps a little naive, perhaps, but let no one be mistaken, our commitments to equality are resounding and firm, and we are not willing to play with something that seems so serious to us.
Many times, from different parliamentary groups, and also from the Government, requests are made for unity of action, not to make partisan uses of certain issues, to row all in the same direction. This has been the case with different initiatives related to Equality and gender-based violence, which have been approved unanimously, without questioning whether the proposal came from one party or another.
This also happened with the proposal, promoted by Podemos, to modify the Law 16/2003, of April 8, on Prevention and Integral Protection of Women against Gender Violence, a modification that aimed to adapt our legislation to international recommendations and conventions, which have been signed and subscribed by the Spanish Government, and which are mandatory for all autonomous communities.
We had no problem in working on the amendments jointly, accepting suggestions from parties as apparently disparate as the Popular Party (thank you, Emilio Moreno) that we understood enriched the text, and renounce some fragments, which although significant were not essential, in the interest of consensus. It was possible and so we did, now Law 1/2017, of March 17, amending Law 16/2003, of April 8, on Prevention and Integral Protection of Women against Gender Violence, will be one year old.
No one in the House can doubt our commitment to the fight against gender-based violence and in favor of equality, no one, and they know it.
A little over a week ago, with the spirit of seeking those consensuses, the Podemos group passed to all parliamentary groups a proposal for an Institutional Declaration on 8M, in order to present it jointly and read it in the next Plenary.
In it we expressly requested: "That the Parliament of the Canary Islands joins the will to achieve globally the objective 5 of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations, which aims to end all forms of discrimination against women." All groups accepted the proposal, signed and so it was registered.
We still did not know how far the mask games and the cynicism with which, on the one hand, laws are promulgated and declarations are signed, and on the other, they are broken without hardly blinking, can go.
It was Monday, February 26 and it was time to approve in the corresponding committees the candidacies of the bodies pending renewal, it was the moment of truth, and if not fully paritarian, at 50%, there were options to choose bodies with some balance in compliance with our own Law 1/2010, of February 26, Canarian Equality between Women and Men. But no, Coalición Canaria, PSOE and PP preferred to make their own distribution ignoring and despising the possibility of taking a step forward on the road to effective equality, break the glass ceilings, and bet on professional women, of recognized prestige, independent, and sufficiently qualified to perform the functions of the positions to which they aspired. But the decision was already made, they chose "their men".
They have no excuses, and they know it. And no matter how much some of them, their bad conscience made them go prepared with any kind of weapon, making valid that "the best defense is an attack" and using accusations and arguments that not even they themselves believed, as crude as that it was our group that made partisan use of equality.
No, ladies and gentlemen, no. Do not get defensive, we did not come to give lessons to anyone, but to demand coherence in our decisions and our actions. Some and others have given a regrettable spectacle, now also mixing this shameful episode with the institutional declaration and the mobilizations of 8M, where more than one is lost, does not want, or does not know how to position themselves. Perhaps it is the problem of the masks, that from so much putting them on and taking them off some people no longer even know what their true face is.
We were novices, not so much anymore, and whether you like it or not, we are not here to participate in the dance.
We are very clear about our positions, both with respect to equality and our position on the call for a strike on 8M promoted internationally by feminist movements: the parliamentarians and workers of Podemos will stop and make a 24-hour strike day, renouncing, as we have registered in writing, salaries and possible commission allowances.
And no, no matter how much they say it and repeat it, it is not a partisan strike, it is not a Podemos strike.
But yes, it is a political strike, and we have plenty of reasons!
María del Río, President of the Parliamentary Group and Secretary of Equality, Feminisms and LGTBI of
Podemos Canarias
