He returns to politics after eight years of silence and assures that he was encouraged by learning the economic data of an alleged mistreatment of the island. José María Ponce (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1955), who is recovering from the accident he suffered in the Canary Islands Rally, maintains that he left the island PP, his former party, because he is subject to the national strategy.
After your time as mayor of Arucas and after a few years as a position of trust for the PP in the Cabildo, you had abandoned political activity. What has led you to return now under the acronym of United for Gran Canaria?
Well, the knowledge of how mistreated the island of Gran Canaria is with the data obtained, precisely, by our candidate for the Government of the Canary Islands, Lucas Bravo de Laguna, where for the first time the insularized figures of investments and budgets that go to Gran Canaria. Knowing that mistreatment has touched my sensitive vein and has reached my heart. It must be said from here that it is Gran Canaria time. It has been a long-considered decision because those of us who have already been in politics for 12 years, as is my case, also in the Congress of Deputies, know that it is a very intense life and we know the fine print. Despite this, we have taken that step, because only UxGC could motivate me to return to politics.
You are a well-known and popular person for your sporting merits as a rally driverIs that an advantage or a disadvantage in politics?
I think that was the reason why what was then my party decided to call me. But later, the work in those 12 years has brought me the trust of the citizens. In such a way that in the last elections in which I ran, in the Arucas City Council, I was the most voted for Mayor despite being in the opposition. And among others, in those last elections in which I attended was the current president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, and we got more support than him.
What proposals do you have to ask for the vote?
As I present myself to the Presidency of the Cabildo, what I am saying is that it is not only necessary to bring budgets from the Government of the Canary Islands. It is not an economic problem, it is a management problem. There are no managers in the Cabildo and good proof of this is that more than 500 million euros of money from its own resources are stored in bank current accounts. This means that this money is poorly managed and must be allocated to public works, employment, training, care for the primary sector, or to comply with that social and health infrastructure plan, since they had promised some 1,000 places and have only executed 29. If we do not attend to our elderly and dependents, what can we expect from a government that is not attached to the main needs of the population. With regard to tourism, which is the main economic engine of the island, we are seeing that other islands, such as Tenerife, exceed us by more than 1.8 million visitors per year. The data is very accurate, if a million tourists are equivalent to 30,000 jobs, it means that Gran Canaria is not doing well in job and wealth creation either.
Does UxGC intend to revive the lawsuit with Tenerife?
Quite the opposite. We do not want to take anything from anyone, this is not an insularist lawsuit, we are not an insularist party. UxGC is an insular party that is convinced that the time has come to position Gran Canaria in its rightful place. Our message is that we are the only island party and we are focused on Gran Canaria. We are the alternative to the traditional parties that have already had the opportunity to govern and have missed it. Gran Canaria is the island with the worst unemployment and poverty.
How do the UxGC proposals differ from those of the PP, where most of you come from?
They are totally different. One of the main issues on which I did not agree with the Partido Popular is that you had to submit to decisions of a regional and also national nature. Now, with UxGC, we are in a liberal center party whose only ideology is Gran Canaria. Now we are self-sufficient, feeling very Spanish and very Canarian, but now comes the time to feel more Gran Canarian than ever because the island is mistreated.
What expectations do you have? Do you think that UxGC will be able to surpass the two councilors that it obtained in the previous elections?
UxGC was in 2019 in an electoral alliance with CC, but now we do it independently. Precisely because what we want is to make Gran Canaria stand out above other interests. If in the end it turned out that the future Government of the Canary Islands came out of an agreement between the PP and CC-ATI, it would mean that we would have two possibilities of having a candidate from Tenerife as president. And if the island is battered at the budget level right now, it’s not hard to imagine what would happen. We want to be the Casimiro Curbelo who decides the investments. We are not asking for more funds and investments for ourselves than for the rest of the islands, but rather a fair distribution based on the population of Gran Canaria.
UxGC has raised the recovery of the port of Santa Águeda for tourist use and it seems that the Government of the Canary Islands is not going to make any decision before the elections. What proposal do you have for the Arguineguín cement company?
The Island Planning Plan (PIO) clearly states that this land has a tourist character. If the port concession is over, we are absolutely in favor of moving the cement company to an industrial zone.
If you entered into the negotiation of the pacts in the Cabildo and had the key to governance, would there be any red lines? With whom would you never agree?
We would agree with anyone who has Gran Canaria as their objective. We are not worth parties that say that at this moment the important thing is Tenerife. The red lines are the defense of this island. Any party that agrees with our program, and specifically in the Cabildo we have 138 measures for the 18 ministries, will find us there.
