The Popular Party candidate for the Cabildo de Tenerife and former mayor of Puerto de la Cruz, Lope Afonso, announced this Thursday that he is going to appeal the decision of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of investigate him for a case of alleged prevarication in the hiring of a worker from the public company Pamarsa, who was allegedly involved in the theft of machinery in Lago Martiánez.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office denounces the PP candidate for the Cabildo de Tenerife, Lope Afonso, for prevarication
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In statements to Canary Islands Radio, collected by Europa Press, Lope Afonso acknowledged having received the news “with surprise”, as he wanted to remember that this matter had already been archived at the time. For this reason, he said he disagreed “completely” with this reopening because, as he clarified, “my participation in what happened is contracted to sign as president of the public company Pamarsa, in my capacity as mayor, some registered labor contracts ad hoc”, hence he doubts that this has “some type of responsibility in the criminal field”.
The popular candidate advanced that in the next few days he will formulate an appeal against the order of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office by which the investigation is continued and he hopes that the judicial instance that has to resolve it, in this case the Provincial Court, can have the opportunity to go “in depth” into the legal part of the matter and determine that there is no indication of responsibility, at least on their part.
These events occur after the return of Lope Afonso to the political front line after having resigned from it due to a sentence that was later annulled. The former mayor acknowledges that this was one of the elements that made him doubt the most when making the decision to return to active politics. Even so, he points out that after making a “deep reflection” he determined that it could be “an opportunity to resume a political path – widely supported by the party – and that it had to do with putting on the table that there is a way to do things reasonable, clean, honest, and that with this it could be made visible that not everything in politics is polarization and noise”.
Lope Afonso affirms that these new events “disappoint” him, but he wants to make it clear that they are not going to undermine his confidence or his morale in any way, but on the contrary, “they give me more encouragement to continue with what my party has just given me.” entrust,” he said.
He has also stressed that he does not consider leaving politics again due to this new judicial matter because he is sure that from a legal point of view there is nothing that can be attributed to him. From then on, if for any reason he continues to be investigated or an oral trial is held, he assured that against anyone who does not act in accordance with the law, regardless of the responsibility, he will go “to the last consequences.”
Afonso began his career in the New Generations of the PP in 1998 and, from 2011 to 2015, he was third deputy mayor and councilor for Economic Development and Commerce of the Puerto de la Cruz City Council, until in 2015 he became mayor obtaining the best result in the history of the PP in your city.
In 2019 he was head of the list for the Cabildo de Tenerife but months after the elections he left the corporation and his political career after being convicted of prevarication by authorizing two craft markets without the relevant administrative procedure.
In May of last year, the Provincial Court upheld his appeal and annulled the sentence of nine years of disqualification, for which he returned to the party as general coordinator in Tenerife.
