At the beginning of the year, Ana Rosa Quintana presented the program 'Women in Power'. This brought the viewer closer to successful, fighting women and role models for the female sex. Today I could do a chapter with the two most powerful women in Lanzarote, Loli Corujo and Astrid Pérez.
Both have become an interdependent tandem. If one fails the other, the other ends up with her. In my opinion, I don't think the blood pact signed between the two will last until the end of the term. The pre-election dynamic will mean that, the closer we get to elections, the more political attacks between the two will increase due to partisan interests. Both candidates do not know how to do any other type of opposition to win over the people. In addition, both start from a completely different position that can favor or undermine the political visibility of each one without affecting the other.
In the case of Loli Corujo, we find a woman who has been able to beat Canarian nationalism on its own ground (by just over 160 votes and thanks to the political errors committed by a totalitarian with glasses). A woman who has returned the PSOE to the most important institution on the island, and all through a pact with the PP. A pact that has allowed the most logical pact (PP-CC) to be removed from the board, and that I already raised at the time in the following article (see here). Loli Corujo thus receives a healthy institution, CACTs that work and all in the midst of an expansive economic cycle and with socialist governments in higher institutions. Advantages like this must be taken advantage of. If she doesn't, she will demonstrate her lack of management capacity. In addition, she only needs to do it moderately well, without making serious mistakes, to tarnish the positive points of the previous nationalist government and renew her mandate for another 4 years. That is if no one else eclipses her.
But it must be said that she starts off on the wrong foot if she states bluntly and without trembling that she wants Carlos Espino by her side for the next 4 years (Café de Periodista 8/07/2019), and then appoints him Head of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Cabildo, with a gross salary of 3,000 euros. A serious mistake in the eyes of the citizens of Lanzarote, already tired of so much corruption by the dinosaurs that have dominated the conejera policy. But this is not all.
Rumors are also heard that she intends to put Eva de Anta in charge of the CACT. If she were at least a good manager, but everyone knows the inability of that woman to manage anything with a minimum of efficiency. Furthermore, it is also necessary to take into account the little political benefit of maintaining an electoral failure of that caliber who, despite warnings, decided to run in the municipal elections of Arrecife.
Perhaps, Loli Corujo should analyze her strategy because the latest events and the lack of political action in terms of real proposals from the Cabildo, may end up taking their toll. Especially seeing how Astrid Pérez is working in the Arrecife city council.
But it must be clarified that the new mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, finds upon her arrival a city council that is institutionally paralyzed, lacking resources and with problems such as the 30 million from the Ginory plot. An amount that will reduce the economic capacity of the city council for many years. But it is not all so dramatic for the mayor. Unlike her blood binomial, the mayor enjoys an advantage in revalidating her position or even improving it. Astrid Pérez already gains political visibility with any decision that improves the city. Because the capital was so paralyzed, so destroyed, so abandoned that the few actions she has carried out in the first weeks of her mandate have had a soothing effect on citizens. This has given her a quota of political credibility far above what she had before becoming mayor. Her 'Activating Arrecife' platform or project is a success that also sends a message about the management carried out in the previous term.
It is true that not all that glitters is gold. The Arrecife city council is plagued with infiltrated members of the Canarian Coalition, who will do everything possible to hinder the mayor's work. But, in any case, even if Astrid Pérez does not have the advantages that Loli Corujo has in the Cabildo, her actions, however minimal, will give her much greater political benefits. And, who knows, perhaps they will be good enough benefits to try to steal the Cabildo from Loli Corujo in 4 years.
What is clear is that the pact of the ladies is not a path of flowers. Both depend on each other due to the pact, but they also start from such disparate positions that, when the time comes, they may produce institutional or electoral clashes. And we all know that in a (political) game there cannot be two ladies on the board.
Alejandro Pérez O'pray, Political and Administration Sciences from the UNED.
