The DANA tragedy took away many things. In the People’s Party, they are ready to ride this destructive wave. This weekend, his Twitter account did something that is not common in the party: directly accuse a top military commander. There are taboos that, for one reason or another, have remained intact, but supporting Carlos Mazón requires eliminating any complexes or customs. The head of the EMU, General Francisco Javier Marcos, had to be discredited for daring to claim that the emergency unit was carrying out preparatory work even before receiving the order from the Valencian government to move to the area of Utiel-Requena. The objective: to portray him as a puppet of the Government with little credibility.
Even if the Army is not sacred from the point of view of the right, other institutions or organizations can now prepare to accept the type of treatment that AEMET and the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar suffered. It is now the turn of the CSIC. Don’t believe these scientists who were going to run away. It is not even necessary that any of his statements contradict what Mazón announced. The propagandistic value of his actions is not neglected in the attempt to present the leader of the Valencian Community party as a victim of the dark actions of others.
The Mazón government communicated to Las Provincias a great exclusive that the conservative newspaper put on its front page this Monday: “The government wants to charge for the analysis of the DANA sludge.” She had received a report from the CSIC in which she proposed to carry out an investigation into the sludge which must be evacuated from the affected localities with a view to its transfer to an area where it will not have a negative impact. The report details the planned expenditure, 320,000 euros. At no time was it specified who should pay this amount, and we know that the Administration is generally quite explicit when it wants something to be paid.
Without knowing whether the interpretation comes from Mazón’s government or the newspaper, the article has no doubt: “The information could only have been included with the obvious intention of paying the price.” In the words of a PP deputy: “If they want more resources, let them pay for them.” A message to support the theory that the government of Pedro Sánchez abandoned the Valencians and which was retweeted by the party account.
The CSIC was forced to deny this on Monday. It will not invoice the Generalitat or any other Administration for the consultancy work it may carry out, as it did not do after the eruption of the La Palma volcano. Concerning the DANA sludge report, he indicated that it would cost a total of around 900,000 euros, “a cost that he will, again, assume entirely”.
No matter what acts of contrition the national leaders of the PP perform anonymously in the face of Mazón’s barely defensible conduct, they leave the house in public with dagger in hand. Military and scientists? They are surely poisoned by the virus of sanchism.
In the offensive to save Mazón, Alberto Núñez Feijóo plays an essential role. After many doubts, he finally resigned himself to publicly giving his full support to Mazón, even though it was already known that there would have been a three-hour meal on the day of the tragedy. “Mazón has been there from the beginning, he showed his face from the first moment and he is the only one who has been self-critical,” he said last week.
Then came Mazón’s appearance at Les Corts and it was clear that there was little self-criticism, because everyone else was to blame. This Monday, in a speech to the National Board of Directors of the PP, Feijóo included some words that many media have highlighted as criticism of his colleague: “Confidence, when it has suffered, must be regained “. It’s a phrase that one could find in a book of philosophical quotes and maxims. This is all the president of the PP had to say in a negative tone about a government like that of Valencia completely overwhelmed by events.
We didn’t put as much emphasis on what he said just before. “We must continue to show our face, to help people, to listen to them because we must understand anger and disappointment, give explanations, recognize mistakes…”, and other things that were intended to be complementary to the Valencian PP. And the sentence that ended it: “This is the path you have followed until now and the one you must continue.” » In short, you are already doing very well.
The PP does not want us to talk about what happened on October 29, about the weather warnings that Mazón received and to which he did not pay the necessary attention, about his three-hour lunch to shorten the the future of A Punt, his lack of communication with the mayors of the affected areas, his very late arrival at the Cecopi meeting and the delay in launching an alert on all cell phones which could have saved lives. His priority is to shine a light on Teresa Ribera, whom he only remembered a week after the flood.
In the end, it is the traditional Valencian People’s Party with other leaders and it will make the same headlines as in the past. The emergency situation requires that contracts be awarded as quickly as possible. Some beneficiaries have already appeared in the corruption news. Mazón entrusted the repair of a dam seriously damaged by DANA to a businessman convicted in the Gürtel affair and who admitted to having financed the “B fund” of the Valencian PP. This may seem logical or unprecedented, but what is certain is that it will surprise no one.
For Feijóo, a dark cloud is beginning to approach. Óscar Puente never tires of his good side, the one that explains without fuss and in detail every progress in the reconstruction of roads and tracks, but his wild side has already started to appear. There are ministers who huff and puff and only raise a little breeze. Puente sniffs and you already have a Category 1 hurricane.
In an interview with RNE, the minister questioned Mazón’s credibility in his versions of the three-hour meal: “I am not going to address the role that everyone played, but there are even those who, being at most high level of responsibility for the crisis, for four hours, we do not know where he was,” he said. “Yes, we know,” commented the journalist. “His version is known. Another question is whether we believe it or not,” Puente responded.
The PP did not dare to ask Puente questions last week during the congressional control session. For this Wednesday, they aren’t doing any either. They don’t want to wake the Beast.
