Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE) ten legislatures in an “almost novel” story, in the words of the president of the Chamber, Gustavo Matos.
The work, 84 minutes long, will be broadcast in May on Televisión Canaria, although it does not yet have a specific release date, according to the sole administrator of RTVC, Francisco Moreno.
In the presentation of the documentary this Monday in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, two former regional presidents, Jerónimo Saavedra and Fernando Fernández, and two former presidents of the Chamber, José Miguel Bravo de Laguna and Antonio Castro Cordobés, have spoken about these 40 years and have made some thoughts.
Among them, on the insular lawsuit, of absolute validity, according to Fernández and punctual in the opinion of Castro Cordobés; or about triple parity, regarding which Bravo de Laguna has the “existential doubt” as to whether it was a success or a mistake, as it gave rise to “a series of nationalist parties of a small insular scope.”
But beyond these specific issues, all of them have agreed, including the current president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gustavo Matos, that the balance of these 40 years is positive.
Matos has admitted that “structural difficulties” and “great challenges” remain pending that propose “changing” times, as it has been in this tenth legislature about to conclude the covid-19 pandemic and improvisation in the House regulations to maintain the activity, even if it was telematics.
Due to this and other vicissitudes, such as the volcanic eruption on La Palma, he has been convinced that this four-year period “will be studied for many years”, and he has hoped that once and for all “clichés” such as that Parliament is a “distant institution, which does not deal with matters of daily life”.
Francisco Moreno, sole administrator of RTVC, has trusted that the report “will be able to resist the passage of time and help to shape an idea of what is happening to us and has happened, where we are and why.”
The journalist Juan Manuel Betencourt, scriptwriter for the documentary, has indicated that these 40 years of parliamentarianism in the Canary Islands are “a story worth telling” through a “choral story”, which reviews outstanding episodes such as the motion of censure on Jerónimo Saavedra who gave the presidency to Manuel Hermoso or the question of confidence that Fernando Fernández presented, and lost.
In the act of presentation, a preview of the documentary was broadcast in which, among other testimonies, there is that of Saavedra, who admits that he was surprised and annoyed by the motion of censure, although over time he overcame it and, in fact, he takes well with Manuel Hermoso.
Paulino Rivero talks about his “fiery debate” with Juan Fernando López Aguilar, and the latter about the “deep respect” he feels towards democratic representation despite winning the elections and not being able to form a majority to govern; or José Manuel Soria and the “monumental anger” that the regional Chamber experienced for a period.