Nobody moved from his initial square in the arguments already amplified by the media before the plenary session of the budgets. Speeches full of grievances, new and old, accusations about campaigns or salary increases while outside the room the pandemic won by a large landslide.
The arguments were already fixed before the plenary session of the budgets and no one moved from their starting box when the time came. Not the president, Pedro Martín, who had an influence on the rejection of the opposition campaign with the “danger of confronting the island’s municipalities”; nor the CC spokesperson, Carlos Alonso, which accuses the island government of drawing up “sectarian” accounts that benefit the PSOE councils, the same party as the island president, “by hand”. The main actors of a morning of debate (sic). Old and new grievances.
A phrase from the socialist spokesperson, Marián Franquet, is valid to explain the balance of the day: “Either we have read different documents or the mathematics of the pandemic is not like the usual.” A question of numbers, in principle the same for all, but the reading was diametrically opposite.
Secondary actors in the battle were the aforementioned Franquet, Enrique Arriaga (Citizens) and María José Belda (Sí Podemos Canarias). On one side, that of the government team and its allies. The other group was completed, together with the nationalist Carlo Alonso, the popular Zaida González, in a somewhat downcast plane, which received broadside without having practically any response time.
With greater or less belligerence, acrimony or success they all seemed to opt for their particular minute of glory. In the case of the president, more than a minute because, without a time limit, he was dispatched at ease when answering. Obviously annoying at some point such as when Alonso reproached him that the budget estimates raise the salary. Martín remembers that last year they had frozen and some absences from the Coalition in the island plenary sessions made him ugly. No high-mindedness, by the way, from nowhere, although most asked for it. It will be for the others. Outside the pandemic shines and many wait in vain for unity of action from their representatives.
Old Scrooge reigned in the Cabildo. The timid final congratulations of the president, Pedro Martín, and his desire to spend these holidays with the family, supported by his finance minister, Berta Pérez, was barely heard. And the Christmas spirit?
