The contradictory versions given by the President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, on the political management of DANA, greatly worry his communications team, the Valencian Popular Party and his government. The president, who began the first days of the disaster, in which more than 200 people died, working alongside the government and thanking it for its help, ended up blaming the lack of information and the delay in response to the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar and Aemet. In an attempt to impose history, while trying to best overcome the logistics of the humanitarian catastrophe, the PP and the Presidency of the Generalitat have launched a whole series of mechanisms to try to rewrite the history of what is happening. happened during the fateful month of October. 29, 2024. Arguments deployed by all public officials of the party in interviews in the relevant national media. In fact, since the tragedy, the president has deactivated his public agenda, has not attended to journalists and has not given any interviews to Spanish or Valencian public television. However, 13 TV or COPE, both belonging to the Episcopal Conference, had the presence of the president.
As happened in other tragedies in which PP-led administrations were involved, the imposition of history and the rewriting of reality became a priority objective. This happened during the management of the Prestige sinking, after the 11M attacks and after the Valencia metro accident in 2006. On this occasion, the Generalitat even hired an external company to prepare the appearances of agents public to the Commission of Inquiry of the Valencian Courts. Today, emergency alerts and the actions of each institution are called into question.
The leak of some audio Thursday evening plunges into conflicting versions. Minister Pradas assured public television that it was only at 8 p.m. that she learned of the possibility of sending the alert to the cell phones of Valencians. A recording of the meeting, broadcast by Cadena Ser and which some present broadcast at 7 p.m., refutes his version: we were already talking about how to warn the population. The Minister of Emergencies and the Government delegate participate in the conversation, listening to a technician explain the alert process to the population.
A chronology that Mazón intends to reconstruct
As reported by elDiario.es, the facts of what happened on the day of DANA were as follows. On the morning of Tuesday, October 29, the President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, had a day full of events. At 8:53 a.m., the president requests in his X account “caution on the roads” and “particular attention to the instructions of the authorities”, with a link to the emergency notice. The Valencian leader chaired the plenary session of the Consell at 9 a.m., during which, among other topics, the appointment of Vicente Huet, expert in bullfighting celebrations and mayor of Barxeta, as head of Civil Protection was discussed. Subsequently, the head of the Consell presided over the ceremony of handing over to the Generalitat the certification of Aenor’s tourism sustainability strategy, at the Palau de la Generalitat. At midday, he moved to the other end of the city, on Avenue Catalunya, to present the Digital Health strategy. And almost around 2 p.m., the head of the regional Executive met with employers and unions to discuss the 2025 budgets of the Generalitat which are about to be presented. From there, his diary is empty, until his arrival at the first Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) around 7:30 p.m., two and a half hours after the start of the meeting. At 8:12 p.m., under the presidency of Mazón, the emergency body, the massive SMS was launched to the entire population of the province of Valencia.
What the Valencian president did during those hours is an enigma. His team explained to elDiario.es that between 5:00 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. the president was working at the Palau de la Generalitat and was immediately informed of what was happening at Cecopi. Mazón did not connect to the meeting via video conference despite the seriousness of the situation, as did other public officials. Before, he was at a meal. As the days passed, the Valencian leader drew up an itinerary of the decisions taken during the storm, omitting this parenthesis and contradicting himself on the question of whether the lunch he had on the day of DANA was private or “professional”.
On Saturday, November 2, the president announced that he was going to ask for more resources from the state during a Cecopi meeting, but this meeting was delayed by 8 hours because Mazón locked himself in with his hard core. After finishing the closed-door meeting with his three strong men, Mazón made an institutional statement in which he demanded that the ministers make themselves available to five work teams that would be led by their advisors. On Sunday, November 3, the kings went to Paiporta, in the company of Pedro Sánchez, with altercations sparked by the extreme right, which took advantage of the indignation of the majority of citizens.
Monday, November 4, the president’s strategy changed. So far, he has appeared at the emergency center to report on the effects of DANA and has limited himself to providing information about the disaster and avoiding political assessments or confrontation. In an interview with Cadena Cope on Monday, after the altercations that occurred during the kings’ visit to Paiporta, the popular leader went on the attack and accused state agencies. He also produced a series of explanations riddled with inaccuracies. Asked about the times and the decision-making, Carlos Mazón said that it is “a quarter to seven”, an hour and a half before the alert is sent to the cell phones of the Valencians, when the seriousness of the situation is transmitted to him. the situation with the possible rupture of the Forata dam. Immediately, the president went to the Eliana emergency center. The meeting took place from 5 p.m. Sources present at that meeting say decision-making was delayed because certain issues had to be explained to the president when he arrived in person.
In the same interview with Cope and in a subsequent one with Espejo Público, Mazón emphasized that, once the intervention of the UME is requested, the military commanders manage themselves. This is also included in the arguments of the Valencian PP to which elDiario.es had access. Mazón said in the interview: “Once the UME is activated, no one needs an autonomous government to request more reinforcements, it is the operational command of the UME which, if it needs reinforcements, call Torrejón and they will join him.” The head of the UME denied the same day that the military could operate without political authorization. The Generalitat asked the UME to go to the town of Utiel, at 3 p.m., during the fourth call that the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, addressed to Minister Pradas. In the three previous calls, Pradas had rejected the delegate’s offer. That Monday, Mazón also filed a complaint against the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar: according to the PP Consell, the representative of the state entity did not properly transmit the information.
On Tuesday, November 5, a week after the storm, elDiario.es asked the Valencian president’s team about a private meal that took place on Tuesday, October 29. His team did not deny that a meeting of this nature took place. The same day, as this newspaper published, his team indicated that, on Tuesday afternoon, the president was at the Palau de la Generalitat “working and informed punctually.” This same Tuesday, November 5, elDiario.es did not receive information on the duration of the meal, but it was indicated that the president returned to Palau to work. All previous events, for which there are press releases, are on their agenda. The food, no. Meals are generally not present, unless they are official functions. According to current laws on transparency and good governance, senior officials must report if they meet with interest groups or lobbieswith a record that identifies them as such. The definition is open to interpretation and is followed by few senior officials.
This Thursday, November 7, a television channel asked the president why he was late for the Cecopi meeting on Tuesday 29. The president responded this time that “it was a working lunch and that’s all” and that “he was in personal communication with”. everything that happened. Sources consulted by elDiario.es confirmed that the Minister of Justice left the first Cecopi, very overwhelmed and blocked, on several occasions, trying to contact Mazón by telephone. “The advisor did not know what to do,” a source from the Executive told elDiario.es. The Presidency of the Generalitat insisted, for its part, to this newspaper on the fact that it is the Minister of Justice who is in charge, and this is what the law indicates. It is Salomé Pradas who calls the body and who is in charge, they emphasize.
In the days following the DANA, and constantly, the Generalitat insisted that it was aware of the risk of storm by warning of the possible rupture of the Forata dam, but a few hours before it had already issued an alert for the Rambla del Poyo. –Rain de Chiva–, the tsunami that devastated South Horta and caused most of DANA’s deaths. From the morning, televisions and radios were already reporting the floods and the storm, with live programs from the affected areas. In a tweet published at 1 p.m. and subsequently deleted, Mazón denied the existence of a “hydrological alert” and a risk of overflow, although his own government had declared it on the networks. He also said that DANA would weaken at 6 p.m. and leave for Cuenca.
The Rambla del Poyo experienced a spectacular flood from 5 p.m., but in Cecopi the focus remained on the Magro river, which overflowed at Utiel, and on the Forata dam, which contains this flow. Sources from the Generalitat insist that the head of the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar gives contradictory information on the flow rates. However, the Generalitat had access to the Poyo ravine flow monitoring system with an update every five minutes. Around 8 p.m., the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, called on Colombia’s Minister of Justice to make himself available “given the seriousness of the situation.” “After this telephone conversation and after deliberation and agreement within the Cecopi, (with telematic presence of the Government Delegation, the CHJ, the Civil Guard and the National Police and assistance in person from the Generalitat, the Provincial Deputation of Valencia and the UME), it was decided to send the massive message to the population, which arrives at 8:11 p.m.,” underline sources from the presidency. The Presidency indicates that Morán “admits to Pradas that he cannot guarantee that the Forata dam can hold and that there is a high risk of rupture”. The focus remains on the dam, even if in the morning, the ravine that would cause the most serious damage had considerably increased its flow, with the alerts issued by Emergencies, and had already devastated Chiva.
