SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, May 13. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The PSOE candidate for mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Patricia Hernández, has assured that José Manuel Bermúdez’s refusal to face her in an open and public debate responds to the “cowardice of the current mayor”, who “cannot sustain with arguments the management carried out in recent years at the head of the City Council”.
“Mr. Bermúdez is either afraid of losing the debate or of making it clear to the voters that his only project for this city is to continue displaying infographics and repeating the same electoral program since 2011,” said the Socialist candidate.
For Patricia Hernández it is “improper” that someone who wants to continue leading the city of Santa Cruz repeatedly refuses to oppose projects and be accountable to the citizens. “In the format he wants, the day he wants and wherever Bermúdez wants, I will be willing to debate with him,” she stressed.
As Hernández points out, “contrary to Bermúdez’s fear, all the other candidates for other public institutions do not shy away from openly debating, such as in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or the one organized this week between the candidates for Mayor of Barcelona, Seville and Valencia, and thus in all the provincial capitals”.
“This lack of courage of the current mayor disables him to continue governing and prevents residents from knowing and contrasting the political proposals that will decide the future of the city,” said Patricia Hernández, adding that the Canarian Coalition, with Bermúdez at the helm, ” prefers to smear the electoral campaign in the media while the Socialist Party leads the only change proposal for the city”.
“Not wanting to debate is an act of cowardice on their part. It is shameful that there is no debate and much more that we are the only provincial capital where the candidates do not debate because their mayor is afraid to do so,” he insisted.
The PSOE candidate has stressed that this “fear” of debating “has also been reflected in Bermúdez’s refusal to convene the City State Plenary in the last six years, despite being obliged to do so annually according to establishes the Organic Regulation of the Plenary Session of the Santa Cruz City Council”.
“The only thing that shows this attitude is that Bermúdez does not want the mayor’s office to solve the problems of the neighbors; he wants it only to hold power,” the candidate explained. “To this is added Bermúdez’s refusal to call the extraordinary plenary sessions requested by the opposition, forcing the secretary to assume the responsibility of ensuring compliance with the law,” she added.
The socialist also regretted that this position of Bermúdez “is a constant” in municipal plenary sessions, “where it has become customary to end with Bermudist sermons empty of political content and proposals for the citizenry.”
“It is clear that there is no debate because he has not done anything, because he cannot appear before the neighbors and be held accountable. Bermúdez will go down in history as the mayor of infographics, of repeated promises. A mayor who hides behind his councilors because he is afraid that his face will turn red,” said Hernández.
