How do you see the Island today after an intense campaign?

I am optimistic. We have worked hard to convey to the public a proposal for change, I think it has arrived and that is how they convey it to me. People are excited about a 180 degree turn in the Cabildo. There is a lot of disappointment among those who perhaps trusted the PSOE and I see illusion, both from people on the right and on the left, that after 110 years of history there will be a woman president of the Cabildo. I have not valued it, but it is a way to normalize the presence of women in politics. Girls and boys need references for a more egalitarian society.

How do you assess this mandate (2029-2023) about to end?

The Cabildo was the great locomotive of the Island with great presidents such as Adán Martín, Ricardo Melchior or Carlos Alonso, and Peter Martin has turned it into an anchor that weighs down Tenerife. It must be reactivated with the help of the workers, their organizations and companies. Martín has disrespected the public employees of the Cabildo, those of now and those of before, with some unfortunate statements. The PSOE has put its interests before those of the citizenry with an absent president, an empty chair and an aimless aircraft carrier. Faced with that, the alternative is Canarian Coalition. We have a great team with human and professional quality, as well as a clear idea of ​​what we need. I am concerned about experiments such as the PSOE continuing to govern and doing so with Podemos, or those of the councils Lanzarote and La Palma where the Popular Party supports the Socialists. I want to win with a stable and strong government to recover Tenerife, put it ahead and raise its lost pride.

He is very insistent on addressing the mental health of young people.

It is a pandemic with suicide as the main consequence and you have to look at it head-on. Children and adolescents suffer, while families have a hard time verifying the lack of professionals. On the plate are one of the leaders in child and adolescent mental health, Pedro Rodríguez, and Juan Acosta, a family doctor.

The elders and Ansina is another of his great references.

It was a cruelty of the PSOE. I point to the president, Pedro Martín, and his counselor (Marián Franquet). In full confinement they were deceived and left without monitors, 60 professionals and public employees. The first decision I will make if I am president is to get Ansina back. I ask the citizens to give us broad support to fulfill the commitments and no agreement can twist them. If society wants they can give me the absolute majority.

What is your proposal on tourism and the employment?

Tenerife has remained stagnant and paralyzed. It is the private sector with a great destruction of employment and strategic tourism projects have not been promoted, since not a single euro of European funds has been obtained in this matter. We need a strategy to unlock private and public investment. Pedro Sanchez and Pedro Martín deceived people with the southern airport. Here quality does not prevail but the cheapest project. If she had been president of the Cabildo, she would not have allowed it. She would have called the director of AENA to tell him that you don’t play with the Island. Tourism has to continue as the engine of our economy, with quality and the regeneration of obsolete public spaces. It cannot be underestimated but valued, hand in hand with sustainability and job creation. Connect supply with demand and do it through training so that management positions are filled by our people. Because the people of Tenerife do not make it to the end of the month. The Puerto de la Cruz Food Bank has gone from 200 to 3,800 users and there is a new profile of poor workers.

Another criticism is that of the social and socio-sanitary field.

I have had more meetings than the counselor in four years with the representatives of the workers of the Institute of Social and Socio-Health Care (IASS). They denounce the conditions in which the Cabildo centers are found, not only in the infrastructure, but also to improve. For example, at Febles Campos the professionals are exhausted because they lack the necessary equipment. No new socio-sanitary places have been built and there are fewer for dependencies now than four years ago (not counting telecare). The Socio-Health Infrastructure Plan paralyzed it and also the La Cuesta CAMP for people with disabilities. They were so determined to generate a speech against the previous stage that they took Tenerife ahead. Older people enter through the ER and occupy a hospital bed. Up to 300 today. We need to build 2,600 socio-sanitary places. In addition, the North and South Hospitals have not been started up. Finally, the situation of the waiting lists is very serious and those of the diagnostic tests, a disaster.

Mobility. Will your proposals help alleviate traffic in 90 days as you have promised or announced at least?

I repeat what I have said and what others have tried to misrepresent: in 90 days decisions can be made to alleviate traffic and not sit idle like the president of the Cabildo. Obviously, the collapse will not be solved, but it will mitigate the queues. These measures are staggering the entry and exit of administrations and large workplaces in the north and south; reinforce public and private school transportation; decentralize public services; a specific strategy for the university community and actions that contribute to rationalizing the use of vehicles by promoting free public transport, something achieved by the Canarian Coalition and has been a success. The university community will have me at their side to help as much as possible, with direct shuttle buses, for example. The measure proposed by Pedro Martín to give two million euros so that 66 medical students –30,300 euros for each one– enter at ten is improvising and not studying.

Tenerife Weekly News