Why vote for Luis Arráez for the Senate, undecided?

April 27 2019 (00:44 WEST)

I could elaborate in several opinion articles on Luis Arráez's qualities as a public manager and his human quality as a citizen in love with his land. But that is not the only or the most important reason why I ask for Lanzarote's support for his candidacy to the Senate representing the island whose government I have the honor of presiding over. 

It would also be equally important for Coalición Canaria to maintain the results it obtains in local elections in the general elections to the Congress of Deputies, which would be enough for this province not to look with so much envy at that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has the most worthy representative of the Canary Islands in Madrid in the person of Ana Oramas. In reality, she is probably the only one that the electorate can remember independently defending the interests of the Canary Islands, against the abuses we have suffered from all the central governments, of one color or another. Well, on this occasion we have the opportunity to have María Fernández - a young and very prepared woman - for the province of Las Palmas, to play that same role, who has the help of Carmen Rosa Márquez from Lanzarote, who accompanies her on the lists. 

And if Madrid is far away for those of us who live in the Canary Islands, Strasbourg and Brussels are even further away, which is where issues of extraordinary importance for the outermost regions such as the Canary Islands are decided, which makes a nationalist representation in the European Parliament even more necessary, in this case by the hand of another extraordinary woman like Azucena Duque.

What happens in a general election? Well, many of our voters believe that Coalición Canaria is not even running or, worse, that with their vote they are going to elect who will be the president of the Government of Spain, when this is not the case. We can only choose which will be the 15 representatives of the Canary Islands in the Lower House and whether or not, among them, there will be an independent voice that responds only to the interests of the Canary Islands. 

But returning to the Senate, the matter is even more worrying when it should be clearer. Many people confuse it with the Congress of Deputies without knowing that in the Senate the president is not even elected, but the representatives of each territory of Spain are elected, including the less populated islands, and there can only be one senator for Lanzarote: the one who obtains the most votes. What's more, it is the only state position, along with that of president of the island council, that is directly elected by the citizens. 

History is full of examples of how the senators of the PP or PSOE who have represented the island for decades - surely full of good intentions - have been forced time and again to submit to the directives of their respective parties, emanating from Madrid, even when these significantly harmed the interests of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. 

Ana Oramas is only the most visible example of what I am referring to, but I have no doubt that no one will silence the voice of Luis Arráez in Madrid either, if you give him the opportunity that our island needs so much. 

Due to my position as president, I know very well how necessary that independent voice is and how useful it would have been for me and Lanzarote to have a representative in the Upper House through whom to raise initiatives to the Senate and defend them without them being conditioned, when not directly vetoed, by the national guidelines of their respective parties.

Lanzarote cannot elect the president of the government, but it can appoint its senator and that is why I ask you to elect Luis Arráez, the only one who can defend our interests without ties.

 

Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez is the president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote

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