“If the Socialist Party wants to continue promoting destruction policies in the Cabildo de Tenerife, it will be without our support.” This is how Podemos Canarias communicated its breakup with the president of the maximum insular corporation, Pedro Martín (PSOE). The party’s commitment to projects such as the Motor Circuit, the Port of Fonsalía, the southern train or the Cuna del Alma tourist complex, in Puertito de Adeje, has led Podemos to withdraw the support it gave the PSOE in 2019 to dislodge the Canarian Coalition from power after 30 years of government.
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The motion of censure against former president Carlos Alonso (CC) triumphed three years ago thanks to the union of the eleven socialist councillors, the two from Ciudadanos and the three from Podemos, although the latter was not integrated into the government team. “The PSOE in the Cabildo has disappointed. I would have liked to find more differences between this legislature and those of the Canarian Coalition. The policies have been conservative, right-wing and continuing, ”says Laura Fuentes, general coordinator of Podemos Canarias, to this newsroom.
The decision to break with the government of Pedro Martín “comes from afar,” says Fuentes. Last week deputies from Podemos met in the regional Parliament, a councilor from the purple formation in the Adeje City Council and the regional executive of the party. Two councilors from the Cabildo group that make up Podemos Canarias, Equo and Sí Se puede were also present. “I had already communicated my intention to make this announcement, especially after the attacks in El Puertito,” says Laura Fuentes.
the trigger
The violent episodes that were experienced on September 26 in the south of Tenerife between the activists and the promoters of the tourist project Cuna del Alma were the trigger for the decision. That Monday, according to the environmentalists, a group of company workers showed up before sunrise at the protest camp that the activists set up three months ago.
The objective was to recover a shovel to which the protesters were chained to stop the works. However, the people camped there denounced on social networks that they had suffered attacks. This newspaper had access to the injury report obtained by one of them at the Hospital del Sur de Tenerife. In the document, it is stated that she presented bruises, a bruise on the head and anxiety.
In another video released hours later, the director of Cuna del Alma, Andrés Muñoz, was seen holding an activist by the arm from behind until she fell to the ground. The woman filed a complaint with the Civil Guard assuring that, once on the ground, Muñoz kicked her several times, that she suffered dizziness and that she could not stand up, so she had to be treated at the scene by a ambulance. The director of the project defended that he was the one attacked, because the demonstrators threw stones at him and rebuked him.
A “unilateral” decision
The spokeswoman for the Sí Podemos Canarias group in the Cabildo de Tenerife, María José Belda, learned of the withdrawal of support for Pedro Martín “through social networks”. Belda, who is in New York representing the group before the United Nations to defend the Saharawi people’s self-determination referendum, has called the party’s decision “unilateral”.
“I want it to be clear that this is not a question of being for or against supporting the PSOE, but that it be a consensual decision,” he insists. As the spokeswoman explained, she had called a meeting next Tuesday to assess what the coalition’s position would be regarding the Cabildo’s budgets for 2023. “It is something that I put on the table. We had to make an assessment of the budgets and about everything that was happening, such as the initial support that the PSOE gave to Cuna del Alma or the Motor Circuit”, she adds.
As soon as she heard the news, Belda contacted the PSOE of the Cabildo de Tenerife. “We have developed a very serious and very solid work within the Cabildo during these three years. I went through some endorsements to present myself to some primaries and I was chosen as spokesperson for the group. I am still a member of Podemos and I think that from the party they cannot do this, ”she criticizes. Regarding the possibility of redirecting this decision, Belda points to the meeting on October 11. “We have to value all the work we have done to defend social justice.”
Laura Fuentes, in relation to the exclusion of the group’s spokesperson in the announcement of the breakup, points to a loss of confidence. On September 29, Belda made herself available to citizen groups and environmentalists from the Podemos coalition to be the candidate of the left in 2023 as an independent. In that statement, she clarified that she would continue as spokesperson in the Cabildo until the end of her mandate.
“I do not understand those changes and those disloyalties that he did not previously communicate. I do not understand that he is independent when he is in an institution for Podemos Canarias and when he represented our organization. This is the statement of the party, with two companions from the Cabildo group (David Carballo and Cristo González) and not with the companion, who has been placed outside the organization”, details Fuentes.
The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, has spoken this afternoon at the inauguration of the university course of La Laguna. The socialist has declared that he respects the decision of Podemos, but remembers that he is not part of the island government. “On numerous occasions they have voted against the government’s proposals,” he noted. In addition, he has assured that his government will continue along the same lines and will try to get its budgets forward.
For his part, the leader of the opposition, Carlos Alonso (CC), has accused the PSOE of subjecting the Cabildo “to the worst crisis in its history.” “The instability in the institution is evident after the withdrawal of support from Podemos, since Pedro Martín remains in the minority along with Ciudadanos, a party that does not exist.” “Time has proved us right because they had no project for Tenerife, except to remove the Canary Coalition,” added Alonso. Lope Afonso, deputy secretary of the PP in Tenerife, rejects “that situations of political confusion are generated just seven months before the elections, with an uncertain social and economic scenario.”
The skills to stop the project
Another reason that has led Podemos Canarias to confront Pedro Martín has been the debate on the skills to paralyze Cradle of the Soul. Last Friday, three activists appeared in plenary session of the Cabildo de Tenerife. “They have not listened to us for more than two months. If we are here it is because we can no longer”, they insisted. Then, the island president replied that the decision on the precautionary stoppage of the work corresponds to the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, led by Nona Perera (Podemos).
“We had a very tough appearance where many balls were thrown out by the Island Council,” acknowledges María José Belda. For her part, Laura Fuentes criticizes the fact that “a level of institutional disloyalty that the parties had never touched” was reached.
The general director of Cultural Heritage responded to Pedro Martín, stating that she is concerned about “the level of ignorance” that the president has about the Cabildo’s powers. Perera clarified that, according to the law, it must be the insular corporation that decides on the precautionary measures that must be applied to the Puertito de Adeje project.
The General Directorate of Heritage of the Canarian Government opened a sanctioning file against the promoter of the macroproject, Segunda Casa Adeje SL, for “the significant alteration and destruction of an archaeological site”. The company is exposed to a penalty of 600,000 euros, the maximum provided for very serious offenses against assets.
the motor circuit
Another project has been gestating in the Tenerife Cabildo for decades. It’s about a motor circuit which has a multi-year investment of 50 million euros until the year 2025. In May, the plenary session of the corporation approved a credit modification to add 5 million to the remaining treasury of the 2022 budget and start the works.
The PSOE, Ciudadanos, Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party voted in favor. Only Sí Podemos showed its rejection. “Pedro Martín is owing to his government partner, Enrique Arriaga (Cs)”, criticizes Laura Fuentes. Arriaga, responsible for Roads, is the promoter of this project that has also met with rejection from the population. “If the circuits on the continent are economically unsustainable, how much more ruinous is it going to be on an island and the additional expenses that this entails?” they questioned from ATAN (Asociación Tenerife de Amigos de la Naturaleza).
