José Julián Mena was proclaimed yesterday as municipal general secretary of the PSOE in Arona, a position from which the socialist bodies dispossessed him two and a half years ago. The mayor of Arona led the only candidacy presented to the assembly held yesterday at the Casino de Arona, with which the management commission in force since August 2020 was extinguished. With the restoration of organic normality, the Aronero Socialist Party recovers as president the former councilor and current president of the CD Marino, Francisco García Santamaría.
The PSOE highlights the restitution of the party organs and the support for the executive that Mena raised, who has Rossana Jiménez as Deputy Secretary; the Secretary of Organization is Leopoldo Díaz; Ana Belén Hernández is the Secretary of Health, while the Secretary of Social Action is Luis Fernando Herrera Blanco.
The general secretary of the PSOE of Arona defended that, given the proximity of the elections, “we have to come out and fight for our municipality, for our Island, for Canary Islands and for Spain. After assuring that “the ultra-right threatens our freedoms and our social state”, Mena called for “also here, in our municipality, we have to raise our voices to demand a complete public hospital in the South, third level and with all the specialties. Our people from Arona and the South have the right to quality healthcare,” defended the socialist leader.
In an electoral key, the also mayor of Arona stressed the proximity (May 28, 2023) of the holding of the municipal elections. «It is necessary that all socialists work to revalidate the absolute majority that the citizens», he defended.
Mena referred in his speech to the fact that “there is much talk about pacts to oust the PSOE from the municipal government, to return to the multi-party pacts of a few years ago in Arona, to return to the primacy of the interests of some over those of the majority in the municipality and we have to say a resounding no to all these machinations. Along these lines, he emphasized that “we have to say a resounding yes to the public interest, to the rights of citizens, to social justice, to solidarity and to respect for legality.”
After he was filed, expelled, dismissed (from party posts) and reinstated by court order due to a conflict in the Municipal Socialist Group, the PSOE nominates Mena as a candidate for mayor and elects him as its local general secretary.