Four appointments, two dismissals and a change of powers. This is how the government crisis led by President Carlos Mazón ended. What seems clear is that the head of the Consell has “cut off” the political capital of his executive, since he relied on profiles very far from the front line of the Popular Party to renew his government. The heads of Emergency Services during the tragedy, Salomé Pradas, and the head of Tourism, Nuria Montes, are leaving the Council, which paid with its position for its lack of sensitivity towards the victims; Marián Cano, sister of the mayor of La Nucía, becomes Minister of Industry; Francisco José Gan Pampols, head of the new economic and social recovery department; Nuria Martínez, head of Justice; and Juan Carlos Valderrama in Emergencies and Interior. Furthermore, Vice-President Susana Camarero also assumes the role of spokesperson for the Generalitat to the detriment of Ruth Merino.
The President of the Generalitat made public on Tuesday the appointment of retired lieutenant general Francisco José Gan Pampols (Figueres, 1958) as new Valencian vice-president for economic and social recovery after the disaster caused by DANA on October 29. Gan Pampols, who, like Marián Cano, has not yet taken office because his appointment has not yet been published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat Valenciana, chose another soldier, reserve brigadier general Venancio Aguado de Diego, as regional secretary to the vice president. cabinet for economic and social recovery.
Since his appointment was announced, the next Valencian vice-president for reconstruction has given numerous interviews to different media (À Punt, RTVE, Onda Cero, El Periódico, ABC…), and in each of them he there is a common denominator, namely In addition, it is the biggest responsibility he has taken on in his life and to which it was “impossible” to say no: Gan Pampols is tired of pretending that he East a technician and not a politician. Furthermore, he said he only expected “generosity and understanding” from politicians.
Although it is a public position with a strong political charge, chosen by the President of the Generalitat and the Valencian PP, the retired soldier – he defines himself as a “soldier” – reiterated that his task in Consell “has nothing to do” with politics, which is why it demands from the parties a “basic consensus”, that “everyone” agrees with what must be done, which “does not have a single political nuance.”
The next head of reconstruction after DANA admitted in one of the interviews that he would “of course” submit to the impeachment trial before the Valencia court (he plans to appear soon, at his own request, before the regional parliament , where he assumes that he will receive “frontal criticism”), but only in the part related to reconstruction; the political judgment linked to the technical work carried out, “I understand and accept it”, but “exclusively” what is linked to this area: “I do not enter into another type of governance”.
Specifically, he explains that one of the “fundamental” conditions he asked Mazón to accept this position was that he would not accept political directives that “affect the reconstruction”, and that once the plan of reconstruction approved, there can be no political interference. “of “any type”. “Technicians cannot be influenced by political orientations,” emphasizes Gan – whom Mazón contacted last week to offer him the vice-presidency – and insists on the fact that he has not not accepted interference or suggestions of a political nature: it was a “condition sine qua non condition“.
“I’m not a party animal.”
In this sense, he insists that his obligation is “to the people”, not to acronyms, and that he will only accept criticism to the extent that it affects the task entrusted to him, since he insists he is not “a man.” party”, and claimed the freedom to choose his team, without taking into account his ideology. For this reason, he refuses to be “subject to a political agenda”: “I am neither a politician, I expect nothing from politics and I have no political ambitions either”.
Regarding the work of the Army and the Military Emergency Unit, deployed from the first day to the area to carry out rescue, cleaning and conditioning tasks, Gan affirms that their work was limited to the situation emergency and that, whoever takes possession of the Vice Presidency, the work must be “purely” civil and under political direction, even if it is defined as technical.
