There were praises, congratulations, encouragement, many hugs and applause, red roses, fists, some dose of euphoria and above all, unconditional support for the management of Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, who obtained an outstanding by getting the endorsement of 98% of the delegates. of the socialist group (PSOE) of La Laguna to be re-elected general secretary for another four years, being also the only candidacy presented.
The outgoing Executive also received a high grade with the almost unanimous support of 99% of the votes, while the incoming one has been almost completely renewed. Only two people remain “and one could not fail,” said the mayor of the municipality, referring to the organization secretary and personal friend, Óscar Olave, for whom he had nothing but words of thanks.
The rest are made up of Josefa Manuela Medina, in the Presidency, Antonio Báez (attached to the Secretariat for Organization and Electoral Action), Francisca Carlota Rivero (Secretary for the Economy), Josimar Hernández (Municipal Policy), Laura Armas (Equality), Marcos Antonio Amaro Negrín (Administration), Susana Reyes (Works and Infrastructure), Ángel Hernández Chinea (Municipal Services), Elena Asunción García (Commerce and Consumption), Gabriel Hernández (Training), Melania Herrera (Environment), Guillermo Navarro (Culture, Sports and Health), María Leonor Cruz (Social Welfare), Eduardo Martín Hernández (Education, Science and Universities), Carla Ramos (Citizen Participation), Daoud Rafya (Migration Policies), Tamara Chamorro (Social Networks) and Juan Losada (LGBTI Policies) .
All this happened yesterday at the event that took place at the Mackay estate, in La Cuesta, the first assembly of the party held after the two-year hiatus marked by the pandemic and which brought together some 500 people for more than four hours. This party of the “great socialist family” -as one of those present called it- was not only attended by militants and sympathizers of the Lagunero PSOE but also by other groups on the island, representatives of neighborhood associations and groups from La Laguna and party leaders, like the MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar; the island secretary and president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín; and the spokesperson for the PSOE in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Nira Fierro. Others, such as the Prime Minister, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the spokesman for the Socialist Group in the Congress of Deputies, Héctor Gómez, participated via telematics congratulating and giving their support to Gutiérrez.
In the first part of the event, the latter gave an account of his management. In his balance speech, he highlighted the close unity of the party and underlined his team’s commitment to socialist values: “social justice, equality and solidarity are values that we need to continue claiming and defending. These are the principles that he has guided us at the head of the Government of La Laguna, and that will guide us during the rest of the mandate. And also from 2023 if we revalidate the trust of the Laguna citizens, as I am sure we will achieve, ”he said.
The voting of the candidacy was a procedure that was carried out with secret ballot and ballot box. After a brief parenthesis, the mayor made a victorious entrance to the tent in which the public, accompanied by the party leaders, awaited him standing and with applause.
It was at that time that the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Socialist Group of La Laguna was celebrated, the second in the Canary Islands in number of militants. An anniversary that was celebrated on June 5, 2021 and that was postponed due to COVID.
The first who took the floor to refer to this event was the mayor. In a minute and just seconds, he recalled an assembly in El Rosario, in which the then mayor Macario Benítez made him see the importance of continuing to work to convince those who are not that the PSOE is the best alternative to “continue growing and adding up”.
Alluding to the words of his elected colleague, Juan Fernando López Aguilar encouraged those present to “charge themselves with energy and do what we have to do: go outside to explain what we have done after so many unbearable years, of bad corrupt governments of ATI -CC, which patrimonialized and prebendarized what belonged to all of us”.
The MEP made the most extensive intervention and also the most passionate, raising and lowering the tone of his voice at times and placing special emphasis on others, such as when he criticized ATI-CC.
For eleven and a half minutes and focused on the words, ‘thank you’, ‘congratulations’, ‘congratulations’, ‘cheer up’ and ‘forward’, he went back to 1931, to the first Spanish republic, to the coup d’état, to the war civil and then to the dictatorship. He recalled that on April 9, 1977, a Good Friday, the Communist Party of Spain was legalized “with treachery and cunning”, “when Spanish democracy was still breathing, and the then military ministers of the government of Adolfo Suárez resigned. A reminder among that extreme right that we then called the bunker, the cave and that continues to exist, revived and re-bunkerized and that so much threatens the work that we are carrying out, ”he sentenced.
According to the MEP, the PSOE managed to remove the nationalists “from what they believed was theirs and belonged to them and logically it has hurt them, they are weakened. And it will be fantastic not only to win again with redoubled resoundingness, but to know that we are dealing the definitive blow, that it will definitively plunge them into misery and will make them disappear from the map”.
His last words were to ask us not to forget that there is “a sister city”, called Santa Cruz, and it is a thorn in the side and we are going to remove it so that Pedro Martín is calmer and Yeray has more complicity than the he already has and radiate more energy, more enthusiasm and more pride in belonging to the PSOE”.
Ángel Víctor Torres addressed the public electronically and apologized for not being able to be present. The regional president congratulated Luis Yeray Gutiérrez for doing a “commendable, enviable and exemplary job, which is setting the style in the Canary Islands”, in all areas, from the management of the City Council, in the defense of the group, of socialist values and in support of the Government of the Canary Islands.
He said that his “exemplarity and honorability is absolute” and he was convinced that the PSOE from La Laguna, which has contributed important names to Canarian politics, such as Juan Carlos Alemán; Jose Segura; Gustavo Matos, president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands; and José Antonio Valbuena, Minister of Ecological Transition of the Government of the Canary Islands, the latter two present at the event, “will continue to make history”.
Also brief was the speech by Héctor Gómez, who from Madrid offered Gutiérrez the support of the party at the federal level and congratulated him for managing to place La Laguna in a prominent place.
Nira Fierro, the only woman who spoke, stressed that during these three years the PSOE of La Laguna achieved two extraordinary achievements: that the municipality is a reference for Canarian socialism and leave its mark on each of the policies it makes.
He said that it was inevitable to remember the first election of Luis Yeray Gutiérrez as general secretary, a path that was not easy at first, conditioned by criticism that “he and his group were very young and inexperienced and yet three years later the only reality is that the PSOE is not only stronger, but that the PSOE of La Laguna is exemplary, honest and stable, something it has not had for a long time.
Regarding municipal management, he praised that the PSOE, the majority in the government that shares with United You Can and Avante La Laguna, has led a municipality “that came from obscurantism to transparency that belonged to a few, to belong to all, and it has done so by recovering each neighborhood.” A work that he described as “exemplary” and that makes “some nervous because they know that in La Laguna there is a Socialist Party for a while,” Fierro declared.
The last to speak was Pedro Martín, who highlighted the newly acclaimed secretary for having managed to unite La Laguna, “something very important because it has also meant uniting Tenerife”.
He described him as “a mayor who is on top of things in the municipality, who does not forget anything and if he does, he takes notes”, with great activity and something that “makes the socialists proud: their solidarity and fraternity with the migrants, with the people who come fleeing from hunger and conflicts”.
A moral commitment and a solidarity that, in Martín’s opinion, “cannot be left alone but belongs to all the municipalities and at a national level” and he promised that the Cabildo de Tenerife will be at the side of La Laguna, putting all the resources that are necessary .
The event ended almost at four o’clock with the public standing, fist raised, singing La Internacional.
