Podemos is the result of disenchantment and mobilization in the streets and squares in the face of the alternating bipartisanship that prevailed in Spain since 1982, loaded with cases of corruption and that had made politics their 'modus vivendi'.
Podemos served, and serves, to re-enthuse many people of my generation and the following ones and, above all, many young people.
Without Podemos, today we would not have progressive coalition governments either in the State or in the Canary Islands. Without Podemos, surely, this crisis would be suffered with the same recipes and the same austerity measures of 2008, with cuts in Health, Education, Social Rights, salaries and in the loss of rights of citizenship.
With Podemos, today a social shield has been implemented and we are trying to ensure that no one is left behind.
That said, it is worth remembering that we still have one foot in the streets, in citizen mobilizations (pensioners, defense of the territory, fight against climate change...) and another in the institutions.
For all this, I have to regret that the other candidacy that was presented in the Canary Islands to the internal primaries to the General Secretariat and the Autonomous Council, and that was headed by Meri Pita, has withdrawn.
And I regret even more the doubts and criticisms, all of them unfounded, that this candidacy has been making to Podemos as a political organization and that have culminated in this withdrawal of the candidacy.
Although, to tell the truth, it is the second time, in just a year and a few months, that these same people have withdrawn in the middle of a transcendental process.
The current one really seeks to demobilize and that the registered members become weary, are installed in doubt and, ultimately, do not participate. The previous one, which has been the most serious that has ever happened to a political organization in the Canary Islands, was the one that tried to blow it up from within, when 15 people resigned from being part of the candidacies to the Parliament of the Canary Islands when there were only three hours left before the deadline closed at the Electoral Board.
Some of those 15 people were now also on the list headed by Meri Pita and who on Thursday, October 8, less than 48 hours before the voting process for the primaries began, announced their withdrawal.
It is important that it is known. And it is also important to say that the candidacy of Laura Fuentes, our next general secretary in the Canary Islands, with whom Noemí Santana also collaborates and of which I am also a part, is a unitary, plural project that aims to strengthen Podemos and the policies of progress wherever the polls have placed us: governments or opposition.
We are not professional politicians, as such. We know that we are passing through, giving voice in the institutions to social movements and in the defense of the public and general interests.
We want to strengthen the circles, further promote the participation and horizontality that characterizes us, because we are convinced that with a strong Podemos we will be more useful to the citizens and to the defense of the interests of the social majority, as we are demonstrating in the Canary Islands in the management of Social Rights or Culture or with our work in Parliament, in the councils and in the town halls.
Manuel Marrero Morales
Parliamentary Spokesperson of the Sí Podemos Canarias Group
