I recognize that election campaigns excite me. Not because it is a process that represents our democracy, but because it is the moment in which we join forces and demonstrate that the Popular Party of Lanzarote is a great family. In addition, they are days of a lot of street, a lot of coffee and countless conversations with young and old people on our island, who tell us in detail their concerns about their present and their future.
In these days I have traveled to numerous points of the island's geography and I have been able to verify that many people do not know what we mean by the useful vote. And I think the best way to explain it was the chat I had with Evaristo, a resident of Arrecife, who assured me that "those of the Canarian Coalition guarantee that if they vote for them, our land would be represented in Europe."
I admit that I was not surprised, because the Canarian Coalition has made sure that this false discourse sinks into the citizens of the island.
For that same reason, I asked him the following question: "Do you know Izaskun Bilbao?". Surprised, obviously, he told me no. I told him not to worry, because nobody knows her, and I explained that she was the MEP of the PNV, for whom the Canarian Coalition asked for the vote in 2019 and who, in five years, has not passed through the Canary Islands.
A pandemic, the bankruptcy of Thomas Cook, a volcano in La Palma, zero tourism, a very serious problem of access to housing for young people or the recent bankruptcy of FTI Touristik GmbH. This and much more has happened in the Canary Islands in these 5 years, and where has the MEP who belonged to that coalition in which CC was going? Well, possibly defending her land, or wasting time asking for Basque to be spoken in the Congress of Deputies.
And the worst thing is not the five years in which a Canarian nationalist formation has been deceiving all the Canarians, but the story is repeated, and now they are going back in coalition with the PNV, with the representative of CC being number 2, who obviously is not going to leave.
Because it is important to highlight that the people we see on the CC posters are not really candidates. Carlos Alonso is number 2 on that list, while Oswaldo Betancort, who also appears on the posters, is number 4. Who are they trying to deceive?
My conversation with Evaristo continued between laughter and some other reproach towards the management we carried out. Because that is also politics, listening to criticism and, above all, learning from it to improve. I also explained our project, and especially the work that our Canarian candidate, Gabriel Mato, has carried out in recent years in the European Parliament, supporting countless initiatives for the primary sector in the Canary Islands, the one that not long ago was our main source of income.
I don't know what Evaristo will vote, but I do know that he discovered the truth. He knew that he was really being misinformed and understood that the defense of the Canary Islands does not depend on the accent you have, but on the desire you have to work.
Gabriel Mato often says a phrase that represents the latter that I have asserted: "It is not that the Canary Islands will have Gabriel Mato's vote in the European Parliament, but that the Canarian initiatives will be supported by the more than 200 MEPs of the European Popular Party."
And that is the key, that the vote for the Popular Party is a vote that is more than useful, it is a vote towards the progress and improvement of our beloved land, the furthest from Brussels but that tied with a thick rope and a bowline knot, the PP brings it closer than ever.
Let's go out and vote, because just as Lanzarote chose to move forward in May 2023, we must choose to continue being heard in Europe.
Jacobo Medina González. General Secretary of the PP of Lanzarote
