Thursday, May 18, 2023, 01:08
Deputy for Alicante, the lieutenant general of the Air Force, Manuel Mestre, will change the San Jerónimo race to increase the presence of those from Abascal in the City Council with a program where debates with Vox DNA abound such as squatting or Equality and LGTB. “We will change the name of the department because family seems to us to be a broader, more emotional concept”
– What led you to leave Congress for the City Council?
– I am very comfortable in Congress and I could have continued, but I had a certain point of frustration due to the low visibility and influence of your work there. My group has presented about 6,000 initiatives and only two have gone ahead, one of them being mine on equalizing military pay. Now I want to see the result of my work in a more concrete way and solve more day-to-day problems in my town.
– In your program you talk about replacing the Department of Equality and LGBT by one of the Family, what does that imply?
– There will be no radical changes. We, for example, recognize the LGTBI collective and respect it to the fullest. We are not going against that at all. Another thing is that public funds are allocated to support policies that refer to very specific groups of citizens. We are concerned with the general interest. So, if it is within my possibilities, the subsidies to these groups will be restricted to the maximum for the benefit of the family, which is a much broader, more emotional and much more internalized concept.
– Proposes general cuts and tax exemptions, how do you plan to recover what is not collected?
– First you have to quantify that money that they take out of the pocket of citizens to spend it many times on subsidies to associations and groups. Our philosophy is to reduce political spending, management spending. The City Council has about 1,200 employees plus advisors. That can not be.
– The current government has almost covered the quota of advisers, what would you do with them?
– It is shameful what is being said in districts that there are candidates who say: “if you get me a few votes, I’ll put you as an adviser.” The advisors have to exist because the councilor or the mayor does not know everything about everything and there are specific issues that require rigor. Now, our policy will be to reduce advisors as much as possible and offer other types of advisors. It seems to me that they should be more technical and those that exist now lack merit and that their number is inflated.
– Regarding heritage, you talk about recovering the church of San Agustín, how will you do it?
– It’s a great project and I think the site deserves it. All the administrative movements will have to be done. The Provincial Council is involved there and possibly we will also have to mobilize the Community in the most artistic aspects. We want to make a large multipurpose music auditorium oriented towards art and painting.
– What is your proposal for the Rubalcava Palace?
– The bet is fundamentally cultural. The museum can of course be, but the building offers so many possibilities that you can do several things at the same time. From an arts and crafts or art school. Nor are we opposed to its being a gastronomy school in any of its parts.
– The coast has been dragging problems with waste, pruning, asphalt, how do you intend to turn it around?
– It is the result that from governments fundamentally of the PP, but also of the PSOE, absolutely nothing has been done. The Orihuela City Council collects 60% of the IBI from the coast. Don’t the citizens of the coast deserve a return on the taxes they pay? They don’t ask for great things: that the streets be clean, that they remove pruning and rubbish in due time and that the road surfaces have no potholes. And not even that the City Council is capable of giving it to them. We will make a department exclusively for the one that deals with these problems.
– This proposal is one of the stars of Pepe Vegara (PP)…
– We carry it from the first moment. I have discussed it with some associations and I have met with Claro and we told them that we are going to accept practically all of his proposals. Now they say they support the PP, which I think is great. I do not criticize that a certain association supports one party or another because it believes that it will represent it better. What I do criticize is that the PP comes and says that now they are going to attend to the coast. But hey, they have been in charge here for almost 40 years and all those needs have been raised 30,000 times! They can’t say they didn’t know. They have not done it because they did not want to, because they had other priorities or because they were busy with their internal struggles and dealings.
– You have also committed to building the Ciudad Deportiva, does your project differ in any way from that of the rest of the parties?
– Yes, but, if the project that the current government team saves the two feasibility reports, we will not oppose it because we understand that it is the fastest way to achieve the Sports City. This despite the fact that we have a more ambitious project that would be to build a large entrance avenue, with the palm grove on one side and the Sports City on the other.
– If you had the key to a government with the PP, what red lines would you put?
– I don’t like to sell the bear skin before hunting it. Now, the only red line is that we will never negotiate with the left that encourages murderers on electoral lists. And regarding the PP I do not raise any red line. Only that the benefit of the citizen is in the head and that what is promised is fulfilled. Something that has not happened in all the governments of the PP.
– Would you let the PP govern alone or would you demand to enter the government?
– It depends on the power that the polls give us. If it is big, of course, I would prefer that we were in the government. It is logical.
– This week there has been a crossover of harsh accusations between the councilors of your party, are you worried that this will demobilize your electorate?
– Of course it can have an impact. People don’t like that there are those messes, but you have to understand that in any community of people there are conflicts. Now what I am not going to do is answer the insults because they are lies. She has left Vox because she likes Ciudadanos more. I don’t know if they offered you anything. I offered him to join my list and he refused. And with respect to not giving up the assignment of the municipal group, it was a decision of José Manuel. She did not have that power since she was not number 1.
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