The verification of the Censorship in Granadilla de Abona located in the south of Tenerife, targeting the socialist mayor, Jennifer Miranda, as reported today by The Day, and which has been under examination by this publication since August 2024, reveals that CC has experienced no obstacles, sanitary cordon, or hindrance when forming alliances with the ultra-right centralist parties, particularly Vox, who reject autonomy. This has already occurred in Teguise (Lanzarote), albeit with the subsequent departure of the Vox mayor from the party; however, the significant shift at the local level transpired in January this year, with the entrance of representatives from Abascal (2 councillors) in Arona, the third-largest municipality in Tenerife, following the ousting of mayor Fatima Lemes (PP) from her coalition partners, more by Arona.
Many have delved deeply for seven months to contest this censorship in Granadilla, yet its negotiations were indicated from the outset by senior levels within the PP, CC, and even Vox to this publication. The fact that their signatures were provided while convening at the Presidency of the Canary Islands government is neither trivial nor incidental. On the contrary, it exemplifies the principle of CC across various administrations that compromises can be made if it leads to power, particularly in a municipality housing the principal airport of Tenerife, with an industrial port that, despite being underutilised and often debated, possesses significant potential, as well as a expanding and prosperous population (approximately 57,000 residents in 2024, making it the fifth-largest municipality on the island). Furthermore, the individual taking over the Mayor’s Office, José Domingo Regalado (CC), is still serving as an advisor to Clavijo in the Presidency, and such a signature exemplifies a pact that, possibly without Arona, would have became obscured and confined merely to a local context and personal relations.
Actually, there is nothing novel regarding an agreement between CC and Vox in Granadilla. In truth, the two councillors from the ultra-right party relinquished their votes to the nationalists to facilitate Regalado’s candidacy for mayor, but this was thwarted by the alliance between the PSOE and the two PP councillors.
Since that moment, initiatives among high-ranking officials to revive the censorship at the port of La Cruz on August 16, 2024, intensified, although Granadilla had made previous attempts. The crucial factor in the southern municipality has remained unchanged: securing just one PP mayor would provide the essential 13 votes (plus the 10 from CC and 2 from Vox). However, mayor Bianca Cerbán has consistently refused to sever ties with the socialists, leaving only the spokesman, Marco Antonio Rodríguez, as an option. Regardless of this councillor’s insistence about their productive collaboration with the PSOE, the determining factor lay in the two prior PP councillors who departed from the party during the last term and ultimately ran as candidates for CC, thus enabling a breakthrough in the censorship agreement achieved not insignificantly within the Government’s presidency, a negotiation led by Manuel Domínguez, which even President Clavijo did not deny to the highest echelons of the Canarian PSOE.
The agreement between these two PP councillors and the PSOE in Granadilla took many by surprise during the inauguration of the councils in 2023, disrupting the regional strategy of the PP, compensating for the CC and PSOE agreement in the Cabildo de Fuerteventura, and contravening attempts to establish a mayor, which promptly resulted in an immediate expulsion procedure for them. Domínguez, however, appeared to remain passive, patiently awaiting reorientation.
Güímar and the Exclusion of Arico
This censorship was connected to a potential one in Arico, where the PSOE likewise governs alongside the PP. However, in this scenario, the option inevitably hinges on we are Arico, which, differing from the Portuense Citizen Assembly (ACP, another formation anticipated to be left of the PSOE), decided in an assembly in September 2024 to dismiss any notions of censorship and a pact with CC and PP.
Similarly, as the Canary Islands has now reported since August 2024, the operations also encompassed Güímar, where CC and PSOE have governed since 2019. The PP has consistently asserted that the Mayor’s Office of Granadilla (a key municipality) could not be handed over to CC (another key municipality) without any reciprocity. Although sources consulted indicate that, at present, there are no substantial developments, the Popular Party has always insisted that the alliance in this southern town should be dissolved, thus returning authority to Luisi Castro. Should the motion of censure in Granadilla be validated, the demand will persist and may intensify.
In summary, the agreement in Granadilla undermines (once again) the statements made by Clavijo and other CC leaders, who have claimed during elections and for years that they would never collaborate with “the extremes, with Vox and Podemos”, particularly due to the centralist perspective of Abascal’s party. However, as early as June 2023, they had endorsed a document published by the Canary Islands now which outlined an agreement for “Granadilla governance” that, at this point, has been reinitiated under the government’s leadership and with the previously lacking support from the PP’s mayor, Marco Antonio Rodríguez.
