The political management of the worst DANA of the century that hit the Valencian Community on October 29 has left the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, on a tightrope, who is already being harshly criticized privately by important members of his party. The lies, the changes in version and the lack of foresight that trivialized the natural catastrophe and resisted launching the massive alert on mobile phones until the flood had become a death trap for hundreds of Valencians have plunged their government into a crisis. deep crisis, when the community is still trying to get out of the chaos that DANA has caused.
Every new day a new scandal is uncovered in the Mazón Executive. If on Thursday the minister responsible for emergencies, Salomé Pradas, lied about the moment in which the need to launch the alert on mobile phones began to be discussed and said she was unaware of the existence of this system, this Friday it was finally known what Mazón did for five key hours on DANA day. An alleged meal, which at first the Generalitat said was private, which later became a “work meeting” and which in the end turned out to be a lunch with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana, former presenter of the Valencian public television in the previous mandate of the PP. The leadership of the PP, which had already distanced itself, as some details of its management became known, had made it clear the day before that it was up to Mazón to explain what he did on the day of the catastrophe. Feijóo’s parliamentary spokesman and right-hand man, Miguel Tellado, said it with these words: “The one who has to explain his agenda is Carlos Mazón.”
It was known that while tens of thousands of Valencians were already suffering the devastating effects of a storm that has left more than two hundred dead, the president of the Generalitat continued with his political agenda without any of his actions linked to DANA. And this Friday it was learned that on the darkest day that Valencia has experienced in recent decades, at 3:00 p.m. when the now famous meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) was called to address the catastrophe, Carlos Mazón was eating with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana, as explained by sources from the Generalitat, to offer her the direction of the Valencian public television À Punt.
When the meeting of the device began, at 5:00 p.m., and with Valencian municipalities already flooded and the first people missing, the president was still at the table with the journalist in a well-known restaurant in the capital and without connecting to the meeting, who did not arrive in person until 7:30 p.m. Once there, according to what sources who attended the meeting told elDiario.es, they had to stop and update the president on all the information that was being considered. It was not until 8:12 p.m. that the 112 Emergency Center sent the mass message. Dozens of people had lost their lives by now.
The meal, first classified as private and later “for work,” threatens the political career of the president of the Generalitat. No one publicly defends Carlos Mazón anymore. Neither his party in the Valencian Community, nor before the cameras the leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who this Friday made a gesture with him by calling a meeting by videoconference with all the regional barons to try to stage unity.
Mazón’s team has lied and changed their story several times about the food. This newspaper already reported on November 5 that Mazón had been blank for five hours just before that tongue of water burst forth and destroyed everything in its path. His team defended that since 5:00 p.m. he had been working at the Palau and had been repeatedly informed of what was happening at the Cecopi. These statements have been proven false. Now there is evidence that he remained in the restaurant with the journalist until at least 6:00 p.m.
Mazón’s team initially hid behind the fact that the appointment was private. In this way they avoided giving explanations. Days later, the president himself, when asked by journalists when he entered the 112 building in l’Eliana, assured that the meal he attended “was not a birthday”, something that had begun to be speculated on the networks. His team clarified in the afternoon that it was a “working” meal, a fact that made its declaration mandatory as established by Valencian legislation. Is it a business meeting to offer a position in the management of À Punt that is accessed through public competition? In the midst of DANA and with hundreds of thousands of Valencians suffering, is it defensible for a president to meet to personally offer a management position on Valencian public television?
But it’s not just that food at DANA’s key hours that corners Carlos Mazón. His management during the first hours of the disaster and, above all, the delays and indecisions of his team have delayed the warnings and also the response of the operation. It was the late message at 8:12 p.m., when many residents were already up to their necks in water or were swept into their cars by the flood, but also the slowness of the device in the hours that followed. Those who were in contact with Mazón at that time describe a president knocked out and overcome by events, without a solid team to rely on. The person who should be his right hand in management, the Minister of Justice, Salomé Pradas, has also lied in several of her public interventions. The most flagrant, in which Pradas assured that it was not until 8:00 p.m. on October 29 that a technician told him that it was possible to send mass messages. After 6:00 p.m. at the Cecopi meeting, as elDiario.es has revealed, the president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, Miguel Polo, was already debating the possibility of notifying the population through Es-alert.
The same leader also did not tell the truth when she said that the central government had not offered the presence of the UME in the affected areas until it was too late. A TVE microphone had recorded Salomé Pradas admitting that the specialized Army unit had made itself available to her on the same morning, hours before the deadly flood.
In this last week and a half Mazón has been left alone. On the fourth day after DANA, the president of the Generalitat locked himself with his team in the Emergency Center for eight hours, paralyzing Cecopi during that time. Neither councilors nor technicians nor the president of the Provincial Council of Valencia were with him, only his three strong men: Santiago Lumbreras, José Manuel Cuenda and Cayetano García Ramírez. Three regional secretaries in the Department of the Presidency. Along with these three, an external advisor: Josep Lanuza, who has participated in several Cecopi meetings and accompanied Mazón in his meeting with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, a month ago in Moncloa.
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