There is not a single journalist in Valencia (or in Madrid or in Spain) who does not know at this point that the powers over Civil Protection alerts belong to the autonomous communities. Everyone knows, although some are not allowed to write it, that the fatal error of the Valencia crisis was minimizing the risks, not asking the population to stay at home, despite the warnings from the AEMET and the real-time information from the Confederation Júcar Hydrographic. There were elements to do it, as demonstrated by the actions of the university and the Valencia Provincial Council, but it was not done. That non-decision turned a large flood into a catastrophe with more than two hundred dead and an unknown number missing.
Those who have closely followed the management of the crisis say that during the 48 hours following that error, Mazón was seen knocked out, unable to make decisions, taking refuge in his most trusted core, among which was not the person in charge of emergencies of the Community, not even its vice president or other members of the Consell. They were very long hours with an autonomous government incapable of even organizing its own resources to put into operation those offered by other administrations.
History will not be benevolent when judging the calamitous management of the Generalitat in the first hours and it must be politics that analyzes, over time, the errors so that they are not repeated. It remains to be seen if the Justice Department will also come in to review whether there were negligent actions and, therefore, crimes. The incompetence demonstrated by Mazón starts with the very formation of the Government when he did not give importance to emergencies and left them in the hands of Vox, as if they were a Maria. When the coalition broke up, that Government became vacant for three months in the General Directorate of the Interior and on the same day the DANA elected an expert in bullfighting celebrations for the position. Is it conceivable that a week after the flood, no one knows the face and very few the name of the Generalitat’s emergency manager?
And despite all that, from a human point of view it was difficult not to empathize with an overwhelmed person, incapable of taking control of the worst flood in memory of the area. Until Mazón began to lie this Monday and contradict the AEMET, the Military Emergency Unit and even himself, on Cope, the radio station in which he decided to take refuge and to which he gave two interviews in just 24 hours.
The central government can be blamed for not removing Mazon in the first hours of the catastrophe through a declaration of national emergency or for at least not putting more pressure on the Generalitat to react in those moments that are key in all these disasters. The first option can be discussed because there are many technicians warning that it would not have been very operational to assume management from the central Government if, despite everything, the political leaders and technicians who would have to execute the instructions would be those of the Generalitat, in any case. , the closest Administration and the one that knows the terrain best. That the Sánchez Government should have slammed its fist on the table already on the second day to urge Mazón to request more resources, as it did last Saturday, is less debatable. In his public appearances, Sánchez continues to support co-governance and repeats something obvious: that the autonomous communities and also the city councils are the State, something that is sometimes forgotten in Madrid.
That Mazón, the same leader who has announced tax cuts for large companies and high incomes and who attacked his predecessor Ximo Puig and Pedro Sánchez for taxes on energy companies, now asks for 31,000 million euros from the central government while only committing to deploy 200 million of its budgets explains well how the Popular Party understands public management. At the moment, the different ministries have already committed 10,000 million in aid and the president affirms that the support and measures for Valencia will continue as long as it is necessary. It will be essential to monitor the arrival of these funds when the media focus leaves the flooded towns.
And yet, the Valencia catastrophe should force some additional reflections on climate change denialism and all that current of opinion that called for deactivating mobile alerts that have already been proven to save lives and that some came to describe as “Orwellian” intrusions. Do those who have decided to stretch their cultural wars to that point sleep well?
And first of all it is worth remembering how a politician with barely any experience in management, beyond four years at the head of the Alicante Provincial Council, the same one who is already openly criticized by his party colleagues in Valencia and Madrid, arrived at the most top of the Generalitat. The PP and its media allies presented the campaign of the last municipal and regional elections as a plebiscite against Sánchez. There was no voting on the community or town hall model, the “let Txapote vote for you” was ratified at the polls. If anyone is interested, they can review the rallies and media coverage of those 15 days before voting. The right-wing media trumpeter clamored to oust Sánchez and considered the regional and municipal elections as a mere means to achieve their end. There were no major debates about what the governments were going to be like in the different communities or their priorities.
Wherever possible, the right and extreme right added their votes. The great objective of evicting who some call the “Moncloa squatter” was closer, so the PP and Vox coalitions were blessed by most of the right-wing media. It was that flood of “let Txapote vote for you” that led to a PP and Vox government in Valencia and in so many other places. These coalitions lasted just a year. The right-wing speakers who called the Sánchez Government, which has been in Moncloa since 2018, a Frankenstein majority, have not yet coined a term to define the fiasco of right-wing pacts everywhere. It is nothing new, long before, while they roared against the leftist majority in Congress, they blessed the PP and Ciudadanos coalitions as the quintessence of stability, which also exploded in all the territories.
The “let Txapote vote for you” has aged poorly and has led to very poor governments in dozens of institutions. Valencia is the most extreme case but there are others. Vox has already amply demonstrated that in addition to having ultra postulates, it is not a reliable partner for the PP either. A year and a half after those municipal and regional governments that led to governments like Mazón’s, something worse has been demonstrated: that those parties that attacked Bildu for not condemning the violence do not do so either when the ultras who cheer attack the President of the Government with sticks. They are not capable of condemning violence while calling themselves constitutionalists. This gigantic hypocrisy is the last lesson of that other great farce that the right perpetrated before the municipal and regional elections in which instead of presenting programs for city councils and communities, it appealed to the viscera and to ETA. It is time to ask ourselves if the “Let Txapote vote for you” benefited the Valencians and the rest of the citizens who saw the arrival of PP and Vox coalitions with an expiration date: just a year. Is this the model that they are going to defend to replace Sánchez in Moncloa?
#Txapote #vote #managing #catastrophes
