Podemos' ideologue in the shadows, Juan Carlos Monedero, who must think he's very funny, says, but not entirely, to avoid trial, that Albert Rivera sniffs cocaine, and nothing happens! Rivera himself now wants to change the peninsular time, because there are no other more worrying issues in this country. Sánchez comes out with a "my homeland is peace" in a debate, which seems more like a speech from a Miss candidate than from the aspirant of a centennial formation to preside over the Government of a country, while his wife goes crazy to appear on camera in an interview that Íñigo Errejón is giving on TV. All TV, lots of TV. Rajoy gives his son a tap on the head on the radio when the kid puts green parsley on one of the stars of the house and sends his subordinate to debate with the others and, if it fits, to his neighborhood association meeting. Pablo Iglesias, who is very alternative, utters slogans in English taken from cologne ads, and goes from being anti-system to creating his own system that only those who are going to vote for him out of pure anger understand.
And these are the men who are going to direct our destinies?
I don't know about you, but I'm halfway between fear and shame. And the worst thing, I insist once again, is that it seems that these are their elections and not ours, those of us who live down here.
Do you know what I'm telling you? That after seeing the level of the possible presidents of the Government and their parties, I am more convinced than ever that we have to be in Madrid to give coherence and common sense to this schoolyard policy that we are seeing in recent times.
We are facing candidates who dislocate their hips dancing on prime-time shows, driving mini-bikes, dancing the yenka on shows for the elderly, and dressing up as lagarteranas, if they think that will increase the audience share.
We witness debates in which there is no debate; they look at the camera with a learned speech in which the "you too" prevails. The PP blames the PSOE and vice versa, and the new ones seem to be messiahs who have the magic potion to fix unemployment, climate change, terrorism, or whatever is topical. Here everyone carries a president inside, just like football fans, who are all coaches.
Debates are repeated in different media and it is likely that many of you have seen a couple of them. Has it been clear to you in any of them what will happen to the Canary Islands if they govern? Ah, that the Canary Islands have not been talked about in any of them! Take it for granted that in the next ones, which there will be to stun the staff, it will not be done either. Because they don't care; because if you don't live in the Archipelago you don't understand our reality, you don't understand how complex our day-to-day is. They don't know what the IGIC, the RIC or the REF is, or what an ultraperipheral region is, what double and triple insularity is, what triple parity is, why our Statute of Autonomy includes the possibility of controlling our population, what a tourist moratorium is, and what specific needs we inhabitants of this wonderful side of the world have.
Therefore, once again, and more and more convinced of what I am saying, I am clear that Coalición Canaria is essential for the interests of ALL of us who live in this land to be defended, and when I say all, I do so in capital letters. All are those who were born here and those who have come from outside but love the Canary Islands even more than those who have their birth certificate here. And there are, and many. And I want to address them especially because I have heard some say that they cannot vote for a Canarian nationalist party, because it seems strange to them, because they have always voted for the PSOE or the PP. If they want their children to have a good education system, to have healthcare in good condition or that it is not impossible to find a decent job, those who are going to look after them in Congress or in the Senate are the representatives of Coalición Canaria, because we understand what they are saying; because we are living it the same way. I also have a young daughter, and she is not Rajoy's daughter; I have a daughter who I want to grow up in a better Lanzarote than the one I found, in a Canary Islands with many more opportunities than the State offers us today. I understand those fathers and mothers who suffer every month so that their children study abroad, because neither Pedro Sánchez, nor Albert Rivera, nor Mariano Rajoy nor Pablo Iglesias know that in Lanzarote we do not have a university, that we do not even have a small university campus, and with a population that already reaches almost two hundred thousand souls we are forced to send our children, when they are still old enough to be attached to their family, to make a living many kilometers away, sometimes thousands of kilometers away.
In short, if you want someone to monitor these "candidates" of television show business, I ask you to give us an opportunity, and perhaps in the next debate you will hear about the Canary Islands.
By Oswaldo Betancort, number two to Congress for Coalición Canaria
