Valencia woke up this Thursday among the remains of the disaster. With help deployed to rescue the missing, the official death toll continued to increase throughout the day. Residents in affected areas worked hard to clear the streets of their villages of mud accumulated between hundreds of piled-up cars and destroyed homes and businesses. And then the politicians arrived.
The first to do so, even before the president, was the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who visited some of the affected areas with the aim of supporting his colleague, the Valencian president Carlos Mazón, whose management of this disaster was called into question by the delay in activating alerts last Tuesday. And besides, Feijóo took advantage of his visit to attack the central government while the rescue services continued to search for victims and missing people.
“I have no information from the central government. At all. “No one informed me of anything, it was me who had to inform myself about what was happening in my country,” criticized the leader of the PP during an appearance before the press accompanied by the Valencian president. A few hours later, Mazón himself radically distanced himself from his leader’s comments and explicitly thanked Pedro Sánchez for his presence and his collaboration. “Thank you very much, dear president, for your quick presence and for your closeness,” he told Sánchez.
The government also did not want to get involved in the opposition’s attacks when the deaths have not even been counted yet. After visiting the Integrated Operational Coordination Center of the Valencian Community and meeting the high command of the rescue system, Pedro Sánchez himself avoided any reference or criticism, neither express nor veiled, neither of the management of Mazón, nor of the attitude of the opposition.
“We are sending a message of absolute collaboration and cooperation. If you need additional resources, the Spanish government is there. We are not going to leave the Valencians alone. The priority is to find the missing, first, and then to devote all resources to reconstruction,” said Sánchez in the company of the Valencian president.
The closest thing to a reproach addressed to the government of the Generalitat came from the Ministry of the Interior. After Feijóo mentioned the AEMET forecasts and denounced the “loneliness” of the regional presidents, Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska recalled that the powers in the management of this type of disaster belong to the Autonomous Communities.
“The regional Civil Protection authorities are responsible for managing and activating the corresponding alerts, which may involve the activation of different plans depending on the type of risk: forest fires, seismic movements, floods, adverse weather phenomena, etc. .”, he clarified. the minister
Defense Minister Margarita Robles, who participates in the Monitoring Committee as head of the Military Emergency Unit, also avoided the accident. Asked about the opposition’s criticisms and doubts about Mazón’s management during the first hours of DANA, Robles avoided confrontation.
“Everyone knows perfectly well what they did well and what they did not do well and everyone must make a self-criticism,” Robles simply responded during an interview on Telecinco in which he stressed that the citizens “would not understand” this policy. Leaders now get into any type of “controversy”.
After learning that the Valencian Generalitat had only activated citizen alert systems on Tuesday evening, when there were already hundreds of citizens stuck by water and after hours of intense rain, the Minister of Politics territorial authority limited itself in its appearance on Wednesday to recalling the chronology of the actions carried out without evaluating them.
“Since Thursday 24, alerts have been triggered by AEMET. On Tuesday 29, AEMET declared a red alert at 7:31 a.m. for the province of Valencia. At 3:00 p.m., the Generalitat announces level two for the Utiel-Requena region. At 5:39 p.m., the Generalitat activates level two for the province of Valencia. At 8:00 p.m., the Generalitat sends SMS alerts to the population and at 8:36 p.m., the Government receives the request for intervention from the UME of the Valencian Community,” he said.
Differences between Feijóo and Mazón
The PP’s national strategy was clear from the first moment: put all responsibility on the government. It started Wednesday morning in Congress as DANA’s death toll began to climb. “I don’t understand the selective respect for victims,” he said of the decision of the parliamentary majority to maintain legislative activity in Congress. The monitoring session was suspended at the request of the opposition led by Feijóo.
The top leader of the PP described the “attitude” of the government and its partners as “despicable”. “They are not aware of the seriousness of the decision they took,” he declared, to insist: “I have seen a lot of things in politics, I have witnessed a lot of moments of moral turpitude, but I think there is nothing like that.”
Feijóo announced plans to visit areas affected by the storm. The same afternoon, Albacete, accompanied by the regional president, Emiliano García-Page. And, this Thursday, Valencia. The PP announced Wednesday evening after 10 p.m. that its leader would be alongside the president, Carlos Mazón, from the first hour.
But the unity of action that Feijóo wanted to portray was not such. Not just with Page, not even with his own Baron.
The leader of the PP took advantage of his visit to the Emergency Center of the Generalitat to attack the central government, which he accuses of ignoring the management of DANA and its consequences. Feijóo also attacked the AEMET forecasts and the decisions of the hydrographic confederation, both of which depend on the general administration.
With nearly 100 deaths already confirmed at the time, Feijóo demanded that a “national emergency” be declared so that coordination, and therefore responsibility, would shift to the central government. There was no hesitation in his words. He regretted that the Generalitat must assume management “with information from another public administration”, in reference to the Government. “No one can make decisions based on information that may be accurate, inaccurate or improvable,” he said.
The leader of the PP turned to his past as president of Galicia: “I have been regional president for a long time and I know the loneliness of a regional president who does not have all the tools and, yet, the citizens demand additional responsibilities. .”
Feijóo became the spokesperson for all the regional presidents, his own and those of others: “The twelve regional presidents of the PP and those of the PSOE form a group”.
But Emiliano García-Page stressed after these statements that the alerts “arrived on time”, so that “the services were practically mobilized before the water fell because we were warned”. “I ask people to help, some must help by remaining silent,” he concluded, referring to the regional leader of the PP, Paco Núñez.
Carlos Mazón was more contradictory with his party boss. The President of the Generalitat silently attended Feijóo’s press conference and immediately went to see Pedro Sánchez. Mazón, accompanied by the president of the government, took the microphone to thank him for his prompt reaction and his “coordination”. Minutes earlier, Feijóo had said: “I would not ask for greater collaboration from the central government. “I would ask for some collaboration.”
But Mazón expressly thanked Sánchez for the “contacts from the beginning, with you [por el presidente del Gobierno] by Wasap, with the vice president, with the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Defense, with the government delegate here. “This collaboration and this communication are fundamental, necessary. “We will continue on this path,” he concluded.
In the afternoon, the President of the Generalitat formally requested the participation of the armed forces in rescue and reconstruction work. Immediately, the UME announced that it would begin collaboration with regional authorities starting this Friday.
