SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 12 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The nationalist candidate Fernando Clavijo has been elected this Wednesday as the new president of the Canary Islands thanks to the 19 votes of CC, 15 of the PP, 3 of ASG and 1 of AHI, which have given him their confidence and will form part of the new Executive, which replaces the so-called ‘Pact of Flowers’. In contrast, the Socialist Party (CC), Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) and VOX have voted against.
Fernando Clavijo thus recovers the presidency of the Canary Islands after having governed the autonomous community between 2015 and 2019 and becomes the ninth president of the Autonomous Community after Jerónimo Saavedra (1983-1987 and 1991-1993), Fernando Fernández (1987-1988), Lorenzo Olarte (1988-1991), Manuel Hermoso (1993-1999), Román Rodríguez (1999-2003), Adán Martín (2003-2007), Paulino Rivero (2007-2015) and Ángel Víctor Torres (2019-2023).
In his first speech as president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, assured that the new government that he will preside over for the next four years “is going to work with loyalty and collaboration and sincerely reaching out to the opposition.” He also made it clear that they have not come “to say that everything that has been done before is wrong” and assured that they are going “to pick up the witness of the things that have been done well.”
He said, in turn, that the Canary Islands after 2020 “cannot repeat the same recipes or the same mistakes”, because “the world has changed and we have to be aware that this change implies that historical challenges of this town have to be to face from the unity of the Chamber and society”.
Clavijo advanced that the government program signed by CC, PP, ASG and AHI will start next Monday, when the Governing Council is expected to meet for the first time, where the main objectives to be achieved will be set. In the same way, he indicated that the Executive will be made up of men and women who are going to work so that the Canary Islands have “a promising future”, in which “they will talk and discuss”, even with the opposition and civil society, ” in order to make things better.”
He stressed that the Canary Islands “are not eternally doomed to suffer the same levels of unemployment and poverty that place them at the bottom of Europe; they are not obliged to resignedly accept that the average income per household is further away from the national average every day; they are not we are trapped in time; we can and must change a reality that has become a chronic illness. We must put an end to resignation and conformism,” he added.
Fernando Clavijo recognized that the new Government of the Canary Islands will not be able to solve all the problems in these four years and considered it important that in strategic matters there is the possibility of reaching agreements so that, once the Legislature ends, “whoever is, whoever governs rule, may take the baton”.
The new head of the Canarian Executive stressed that there are issues on which an agreement will have to be reached in order to form a “solid” front and a “firm and seamless” position that will allow the interests of the Canary Islands to be defended. For this reason, he reiterated the need to create a set of objectives that can become a witness that is of the Canarian people.
To the parties that have given him their trust, he reiterated his gratitude and his commitment that he will do a “tireless” job. “I don’t want to and I’m not going to let them down,” he remarked. And he told the opposition parties that, within the framework of the dispute, there must be a space for meaning and the common good: “This government is not going to get to work with political propaganda; it comes to transform reality and serve, and whoever wants to work and defend the Canary Islands we extend our hand”.
“The road begins here. Life knocks us down, hurts us, teaches us and makes us the protagonists of our own history. We are going to fight with all our might to change that history and provide the Canary Islands with a better future,” he concluded.
PROFILE OF FERNANDO CLAVIJO.
Fernando Clavijo was born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, in Tenerife, on August 10, 1971 and has a degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of La Laguna. He has worked in a private company, combining this activity with his studies.
Clavijo entered politics in 1992. He has been general secretary of the Juventudes de Coalición Canaria and later also assumed the presidency of the Local Association of CC in San Cristóbal de La Laguna. Between 2003 and 2007 he was a councilor for the La Laguna City Council and in 2007 he was appointed mayor to replace his party partner Ana Oramas. He was in the position until 2015. Since July 2012 he also assumed the General Secretariat of CC.
In the May 2015 elections, Fernando Clavijo headed the Canarian Coalition list for the Canary Islands Parliament, taking office as Prime Minister in July 2015. In the 2019 elections, he repeated as CC candidate for the Presidency of the Canary Islands, becoming the opposition after the formation of the ‘Pact of Flowers’.
In July 2019, he was appointed senator for the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands. He has combined this position with the National General Secretariat of the Canary Islands Coalition since November 2020. In the 2023 elections he repeated as CC candidate for the Presidency of the Canary Islands.
