Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE) “short, medium or long-term plans to abandon” the capital’s City Council.
Something that in any case does not deprive Bermúdez, who is also an elected deputy in the Canarian Parliament, from running as a CC candidate for Congress or the Senate in the July 23 elections.
Bermúdez has been asked about this point when signing the agreement with the PP for the governance of Santa Cruz because one of the conditions that the PP candidate, Carlos Tarife, had put on the table was that he would support the investiture of that one, as head of the CC list, but not of another member of the same in case he left the local corporation.
The text of the pact between CC and PP expressly states that in the event that, “for any reason”, the mayor resigns or leaves during the term of office, the pact monitoring commission will be convened to “review” the agreements sealed “according to these new circumstances”.
Bermúdez has indicated that unless “something that exceeds my plans, personal issues” arises, he will remain in the Santa Cruz mayor’s office, and if these extraordinary circumstances occur, the pact monitoring commission will meet to make “the appropriate decisions ”.
Carlos Tarife has revealed that the pact was agreed after three meetings of the CC and PP negotiating commissions were held and that there was no “dialogue offer” from the PSOE despite the fact that his party had given him “freedom” to meet with the team of the socialist Patricia Hernández, winner of the 28M elections.
He has abounded that personally “he did not want to agree with the left” but that in the event that his party had asked him to, he would have complied.
Tarife has emphasized that the agreement closed with CC is “solid”, whose main axes are that the city is “more dynamic and provides more opportunities to create employment”, the approval of a new general plan, ending water discharges fecal into the sea and “finally” achieve a blue flag for the coast, as well as making an effort for “those who need it most”.
Finally, he has hoped that in the next term there will be greater “complicity” on the part of the rest of the administrations with the “unfinished business” of the city.
Along the same lines, José Manuel Bermúdez has proclaimed that “this pact does not end here”, but rather that he hopes that “it will have a projection” between CC and PP in the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo de Tenerife, because the intention, he has said, is “recover the investment that was denied us” by the socialist governments in those other institutions.
He has insisted that it is “fundamental” for Santa Cruz to “put an end to this punishment, marginalization and sectarianism” by the PSOE with the city.
Bermúdez has assured that this pact “is the best in Santa Cruz and for Santa Cruz”, since it “guarantees the stability” that, in his opinion, the CC and PP have achieved after the motion of no confidence against the socialist Patricia Hernández; and provides certainty and moderation”, while at the same time allowing “to give a new impetus to the city”.
He has insisted that both formations undertake to claim “loyalty and firmness for the treatment that Santa Cruz deserves as the capital of the island and co-capital of the Canary Islands.”
He has declared himself optimistic that within four years there will be “a better Santa Cruz than we have today”, which is in turn “better than the one we collected in July 2020”, when they presented the motion of censure and recovered the mayor’s office with the vote of the then mayor of Ciudadanos Evelyn Alonso, today in the ranks of CC.
Neither Bermúdez nor Tarife have specified who will be the councilors of the next local government, whose powers are distributed as follows:
Canary Islands Coalition: Presidency, Treasury and Patrimony (includes Municipal Housing); Autonomous Organization for Parties, Security and Mobility, Social Affairs, Human Resources, Youth and Education, Infrastructures, Equality and Diversity, Anaga, Southwest and Centro-Ifara Districts, and the Mayor’s Offices 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9.
Popular Party: Environmental Sustainability and Public Services and Animal Welfare (includes Fundación Santa Cruz Sostenible); Strategic Planning, Urbanism, Economic Promotion, Tourism, Commerce and Development Society; Sports, Autonomous Organization of Culture, Salud-La Salle and Ofra-Costa Sur Districts; and Mayor’s Offices 1, 3, 5 and 7.