The news was announced by the president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Ástrid Pérez, in the ordinary plenary session during a question from Nueva Canarias (NC) to the Canary Islands president, Fernando Clavijo. It is planned that a minute of silence will be observed when the control session is over.
Saavedra was born on July 3, 1936 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, he served as president of the Government of the Canary Islands from 1983 to 1987 and from 1991 to 1993, to later hold the Public Administration portfolio as minister (1993-1995), as well as of Education and Science (1995-1996) of the Government of Spain.
In the PSOE he was in charge of the central executive of the party during the last term of Felipe González, always being a man with his own opinion within the party but highly respected and loved both by colleagues in his party and by his political opponents.
In 2007 he obtained the Mayor’s Office of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by an absolute majority.
Doctor in Law and diploma in Business Administration, Saavedra began his activism in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and the General Union of Workers (UGT) in 1972, being elected general secretary of the Canarian socialist party (PSC-PSOE) in 1977 and between 1976 and 1983 member of the Executive Committee of the UGT.
He was also a deputy for the PSOE for the province of Las Palmas in the first Constituent Cortes (1977) and was elected deputy again in the general elections of 1979, 1982 and 1989. Likewise, he served as senator to the Cortes in 1996 and from 1999 to 2003.
Likewise, in 2000 he revealed that he was homosexual in the prologue of the book ‘Outing in Spain’ by the writer and professor Fernando Bruquetas, becoming the first openly gay politician in the history of Spain to hold several public positions.
Appointed deputy of the Common by the Parliament of the Canary Islands in the session of November 30, 2011, he took office on December 12, 2011, a position he held until the summer of 2018. In addition, Saavedra was a person closely linked to culture.
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