Neither self-criticism, nor empathy, nor forgiveness. Carlos Mazón appeared before the courts of Valencia on Friday, when 20 days had already passed since the tragedy caused by DANA in which more than 200 people died. And he did it to blame “the system”. Especially the system. Without assuming the responsibility that corresponded to him. He made the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) a scapegoat for lies, inaccuracies and manipulation by accusing the entity of subjecting the Generalitat to a “two and a half hour” information blackout that did not never existed.
Call it a hoax, a lie or disinformation, because the CHJ sent up to 194 flood-related notices to the Valencian Community Emergency Coordination Center. Emails provided by this newspaper contain alerts about increased rains in Chiva, the head of the El Poyo ravine that caused much of the disaster. Sixty of these messages were sent while Mazón was eating and sharing a meal with a journalist in a restaurant to offer her the leadership of regional television. At least that’s what he says in the umpteenth version about his disappearance at critical times.
Nor was the catastrophe inevitable, as Mazón came to suggest, nor did all the protocols fail, as demonstrated by the University, several companies and some municipalities, which heeded the alerts and thus safely avoided an increase in the number of deaths. The only one who was out of place and who also ignored the alerts was the head of the Generalitat. The one who has said it loudest and clearest these days is his predecessor at the head of the presidency of the Consell, the socialist Ximo Puig, for whom “the protocols and the system have not failed, the management failed.” Something that the Sánchez government has not yet said categorically, although Mazón broke with the strategy with which in the first days he had organized an exercise of good rollism with the Spanish government, which at no time was followed neither by Feijóo nor by the national leadership of the party.
Génova – who from the first day considered Mazón as amortized – and the president of the Generalitat are only united by the determination to place the blame on Teresa Ribera and the rupture of all institutional and moral codes, as demonstrated this week in Brussels by confusing the appointment of the vice-president as European commissioner even at the risk of breaking the consensus established in the Euro Parliament for the configuration of the new college of commissioners.
For days, voices have been heard in the socialist ranks which, although lukewarm, have asked the government for more strength to defend itself against attacks from the right, but in La Moncloa there is no question of paying more mud in the party. swamp in which the PP has transformed this crisis into mud and death. “We will continue to contain criticism,” says a minister who believes that it is the Valencians, and not the PSOE, who seem to have already declared “that Mazón’s grace period is over.” This does not mean that on Friday, after listening to the Valencian president at Les Corts, a turning point was marked in the socialist strategy to distinguish itself from the PP and also from Compromís.
In the words of another minister who is part of the team coordinating the reconstruction of the affected areas, “even the hyperventilation of those in Feijóo does not help in this crisis, in which everything must be done so that people return to life as soon as possible. possible, nor the resignation of the president of the Consell that Baldoví demands. A resignation of Mazón would not change anything because, for those of Pedro Sánchez, the PP would remain in the hands of Vox and the denial of climate change, therefore the Consell would be the same and in case of emergency it would act again in the same way . .
The government also does not consider it appropriate to call elections in the middle of the reconstruction work and that is why, through the words of the general secretary of the PSPV and Minister of Science, Diana Morant, the socialists have indicated as a temporary solution what they call “a responsible response, one that addresses the climate emergency and is not led by a negligent and incompetent president.” The solution is for the PP to dismiss Mazón and appoint a transitional president, who would have the support of the socialists in exchange for three conditions: that he be appointed on a temporary basis and that he has a technical profile, that he be responsible for recovery and reconstruction is a collaborative task in which all the parliamentary groups of the Corts participate, with the exception of Vox, and whose elections are called for 2025.
If the Feijóo PP and the government agree on anything, it is that Mazón is “unable” to continue. The difference is that the socialists verbalize it and the popular ones only make it explicit behind the scenes and without microphones. “We want real solutions and not political calculations”, they emphasize from the office of the president of the government, who has given precise instructions so that his people can only take care of reconstruction work and “not lose a second to respond to provocations. of the law more than with data and facts such as those broadcast from the X account @infoDanaGob, where the measures adopted by the Spanish government are displayed daily, both in terms of infrastructure and public aid as well as in the way of access it themselves.
The Socialists’ proposal to offer Feijóo a way out of Mazón means, according to Sánchez’s team, being “up to the task”, despite the political cost that they know giving votes to the PP would have among their electorate . Nothing. Neither armchairs nor counterparts. Sánchez imposed on the PSOE to avoid partisan calculations in the face of this crisis to legitimize the government’s action and not to deviate a single millimeter from the work of reconstruction, care for victims and drip dissemination of public service information. Not everyone understands the slogan, nor the role played by the PSPV and its general secretary, Diana Morant, over the last two weeks. The Minister of Science and Universities is also criticized for being absent from the political response and also from ground zero of the disaster. The complete opposite of what the government delegate in Valencia, Pilar Bernabé, did, who we see daily on the ground and alongside the mayors of the most affected cities. In their defense, those who criticize Morant believe that the minister, who should not have left Valencia since the day of the disaster, is following the guideline that La Moncloa wrote to her and that, for some Valencians, “it is not not quite correct. » .
The PSPV leaders are much more explicit and forceful against Mazón than the scenario established from Madrid indicates. “In a homeless person, a guy who has never taken the position he holds seriously” and who on Friday, “instead of throwing himself into the rags of his lies and manipulations, should not have been allowed to move beyond the framework of a statement and a single question.” : you did not inform the population at the appropriate time and did not explain the truth about where you were,” said a Valencian socialist.
Whoever speaks thus agrees in the analysis with former president Puig, who, in a conversation with this newspaper, defends that the lack of explanations and the entire appearance of Mazón in the Corts was “a huge lack of humanity and democratic courage” and that “Today, he cannot ask for the confidence of Valencians in the face of reconstruction, while he completely lacks the moral authority to speak with the unions, the men of business and civil society and forge the less consensus for the new stage.”
Those who, in the words of the former president, “never took the emergency seriously, cannot blame others and fail to assume their responsibilities. “It was neither the government, nor the UME, nor the AEMET, nor the CHJ, it was simply not where it should be.”
