SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 10 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The former spokesperson for Sí Podemos in the Cabildo de Tenerife, María José Belda, announced this Tuesday that she will continue in the corporation as a non-attached director for the remainder of her mandate, while she has denounced the “political violence” that is exercised in the formation dwelling.
In a statement, Belda assures that she has been “explicitly” punished after announcing her departure from Podemos in October and “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 citizenship and territory, its coordinated work with organized civil society and its strict monitoring of the program”.
These factors, he continues, “which are the ones that have to be valued, have been ignored, I am fired without justifications that argue that my work as the group’s spokesperson is contrary to its political interests.”
With this decision, he indicates, “a precedent is being created where the 732 votes of the 2019 primaries that supported the candidacy as head of the list and option for the presidency of the Cabildo de Tenerife have been devalued and are no longer of interest to this party” .
Likewise, it points out that the letter signed by 100 leftist voters and the 16 letters received from 30 different groups, which endorse the work of María José Belda for almost four years as her spokesperson and request her presence until the end of the mandate, ” have not been taken into account.”
Belda uses the report ‘Gender-based political violence in Spain’, published by the Ministry of Equality, to warn that it is practiced against women as “any type of physical or psychological aggression carried out by party leaders and other actors politicians against women, in order to hinder their presence in public life”.
Or as defended in a motion presented by Podemos en cascada last November where it is said “public representatives have, in this sense, a special social relevance when it comes to adopting behaviors in accordance with democratic values and of respect for Fundamental Rights, we must highlight here, among others, 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”.
Along these lines, she details that this violence has been exercised against her since October when she was at the United Nations headquarters in New York representing the group in defense of the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people.
At that time, he stresses, the general coordinator of Podemos Canarias, Laura Fuentes, “unilaterally broke the pact of external support for the island government of the Cabildo de Tenerife without prior consultation or notice” and two days later she announced that the militancy would dismiss her. as spokesperson.
“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,” he details.
THEY USE THE “PATRIARCHY” TO “SILENCE” THEIR ACTIVITY
Belda comments that she was kept as spokesperson “so as not to make noise on the occasion of the celebration of the primaries” and to carry out the plenary session of the budgets but in recent months she has been “invisible” in the party publications that are made from social networks when she has been “co-founder” of Podemos in Tenerife.
In her opinion, “there is no doubt that the tools of the patriarchy have been used” to “silence” her activity and dismiss her from her position “without any objective reason for it.”
“The truth is that the militancy has never been consulted and also the voice of the articulated society has been ignored, which has requested through writings that the spokesperson be maintained in the Cabildo,” he indicates.
Along these lines, he criticizes the “verticality” that exists in the party because “horizontality has disappeared” and “give strength to the voice of the citizenry within the administrations.” “All this has disappeared, leaving as a message to the public that Podemos has been the one who has killed hope,” he adds.
“It is for this reason and with the greatest certainty that I am not going to 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 had done something that went against the principles that I stand for and allow all the work that has been done under my spokesperson to be taken away from me. It is for this reason that between now and the end of May I will remain non-attached 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.
