The resignation of Daniel Chapela With his departure from the party, of which he is also a councilor in Bueu (Pontevedra), his hometown, attacking his own party has shaken Galician politics this Tuesday. The matter is controversial because never in the recent history of Galicia no one had resigned from the highest leadership body of the government party due to disagreement with the policies applied by the party itself.
The event takes place two days after thousands of Galicians took to the streets on Sunday in Santiago to protest against the Language Policy of the Xunta after learning that IGE data shows that, for the first time, the country’s own language is a minority. Chapela accused the Culture Minister who is leading the attempt at a pact with the opposition to revitalize the Galician language in the Xunta as “incompetent.”
In this sense, Chapela criticized “the inability” of the Department of Culture, directed by José López Campos to direct the language situation. He also referred to the councilor’s statements about “the pola lingua pact” that show this difficulty in facing the future of Galician.
The mayor of Bueu also alludes to differences with the municipal spokesperson, Elena Estévezwhich he reproached for having ordered a change in the orientation of the vote when a project was addressed in plenary to materialize the disappearance of a car park in Rúa nova de Arriba and turn it into a green area.
A statement explains that in the municipal campaign, the party had promised to oppose the closure, but the spokesperson ordered to abstain. He chose to break the voting discipline out of “loyalty” with the neighbors, which caused a case to be opened for him. sanctioning file that was not completed.
However, he stressed in the afternoon, the final reason for abandonment is Galicia and linguistic policy. Chapela considers that the pact for the Galician is “impossible” given the position of the councilor, whom he reproaches for criticizing the PSdeG after Sunday’s demonstration instead of listening to those who protested. In his opinion, it is necessary to repeal the multilingualism decree and concentrate the effort on Galician, which “is dying,” he said.
“Nothing has changed”
Daniel Chapela was appointed coordinator of the PPdeG Culture area in May 2022when Alfonso Rueda reorganized the leadership of the party after being proclaimed president at the Pontevedra congress.
For his part, the Minister of Culture has defended that the position of the Xunta and the PPdeG regarding the linguistic issue “it is still the same as two and a half years ago” when the Cultural Coordinator of the Popular Galicians joined the party; and it is also the same, he added, “as eight months ago in the electoral campaign”, when Chapela was coordinator.
The councilor has assured that he learned of Chapela’s resignation this morning after the approval of the Galicia Inclusive and Accessible Culture Bill. Thus, he stated that “I don’t know the reasons, I don’t understand what his motivation could be,” he said.
I have a cordial relationship with him. I will try to go into more depth about his motivations because until yesterday he had a totally friendly meeting with the person in charge of Linguistic Policy, we had scheduled a meeting of the party’s Culture Commission to analyze the language pact,” he said.
Thus, he has insisted that the pact for language “scrupulously” complies with what the statutes of the PPdeG say, which wants to “use Galician in a cordial, harmonious way and without linguistic impositions,” he highlighted. For all these reasons, López Campos believes that the motivation for the resignation “will not come from the linguistic issue,” he stressed.
I suppose that he will have other types of evaluations that I cannot evaluate, surely they can be seen in the next few days but I am convinced that because of his attitude, because of his involvement during these last months, the real reason for his resignation It is not a question of your position in the linguistic fieldstated the person in charge of Lingua de la Xunta.
Asked about the accusations of “incompetence” directed at him and his team, López Campos has argued that he has been in politics for “20 years,” after being a regional and provincial deputy and mayor of the Pontevedra municipality of A Estrada for 13 years, and that “no one ever used that “incompetent” appellation towards him.
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