The former spokesperson for Sí Podemos in the Cabildo de Tenerife, María José Belda, announced this Tuesday in a statement that she will continue as a non-attached counselor in the island institution. She has affirmed this in a statement in which she claims to have suffered “political violence” from her ex-party since she announced her departure from it in the face of the May 2023 elections and that led to her being removed from the spokesperson of her group.
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Belda had offered herself at the end of September 2022 (when she was still a spokesperson for Sí Podemos) as an independent candidate of the left to the Cabildo de Tenerife ahead of the May 2023 elections. In a statement, he then confessed that he had decided to park his political activity at the end of the term, but claimed that as an independent he would maintain “what he learned” during this term.
Some days after, Podemos announced the break with the PSOE in the island’s Cabildo, after the party’s commitment to projects such as the Circuito del Motor, the Puerto de Fonsalía, the southern train or the Cuna del Alma tourist complex, in the Puertito de Adeje. A decision that Belda then claimed to have found out from the press, since he was in New York representing the group before the United Nations to defend the self-determination referendum of the Saharawi people.
The Podemos militancy decided to renew the spokesperson
Events thus revealed an internal schism that would lead to Sí Podemos announcing a few days later that the Insular Network of Podemos Tenerife (composed of the circles of the island) had urged that the spokesperson of the political group of Sí Podemos Canarias in the Cabildo de Tenerife be renewed. Party sources, who have preferred not to make statements on this matter, have commented on other occasions that they tried to contact Belda to inform her of her decision, but without success.
The councilors executed the mandate of the bases; change the spokesperson after Belda announced her intention not to continue in the party in the future, so she was changed to the next person on the list: David Carballo. A modification that became effective ten days ago.
This is a decision that Belda considers in her statement to be unilateral and the militancy was not consulted. He also considers that “the voice of the articulated society that has requested through writings to maintain the spokesperson in the Cabildo has been ignored,” he says. In addition, he adds that “the fact of knowing the dismissal hours before the news was made public shows that this was a decision made by the party executive in the absence of the participation of the militancy.”
Belda explains why she will continue as a non-attached
The former spokeswoman points out that since she announced her departure from Podemos, she has been “explicitly punished” and that “this retaliation has ended up destroying a political group that until now has been making a big difference due to its proactivity in proposals in favor of the citizenry. and the territory, its coordinated work with organized civil society and its strict monitoring of the program”. In addition, she reproaches that she is fired “without justifications” that argue that her work “as the group’s spokesperson is contrary to its political interests.”
Likewise, in the letter released to the media on Tuesday, he insists that gender-based political violence in Spain is what is practiced against women as “any type of physical or psychological aggression exercised by party leaders and other political actors against women, in order to hinder their presence in public life.” It also refers to the writing of a motion of Podemos where it is reflected that “public representatives have, in this sense, a special social relevance when it comes to adopting behaviors in accordance with democratic values and respect for Fundamental Rights. Articles 9.2, 10.1 and 14 of the Spanish Constitution, relating to real and effective freedom and equality, the dignity of the person and equality and prohibition of discrimination, respectively, must be highlighted here”.
Belda denounces that she has been made invisible in the publications made from the Podemos Tenerife networks, “even as a militant” and highlights that she has always worked for the values and program of a party of which she has been a co-founder in Tenerife. “There is no doubt that the tools of the patriarchy have been used to silence her and remove her from public office without any objective reason for it,” she denounced in the statement. “Verticality is today the way of working within a party that was born to change the way of doing politics and put horizontality at the center, give strength to the voice of the citizenry within the administrations. All this has disappeared, leaving a message for the public that Podemos has been the one who has killed hope, ”she adds.
“It is for this reason and with the greatest certainty that I will not allow this situation. I am not going to allow myself to be displaced for working, for complying with a program, for having left a group within the Island Council in a good place. I am not going to allow myself to be treated as if I have done something that goes against the principles that I stand for and have all the work that has been done under my spokesperson taken away from me. It is for this reason that from now until the end of May I will remain unaffiliated representing those who have voted for me, a decision that I have consulted with the people who have endorsed my career and of course with the people who make up the platforms and associations, whom I want to thank for their support, perseverance and commitment”, he concludes.
