Politics
Sections
Highlight
Sections
Highlight
Burguera / A. Rallo / J.C. Ferriol Moya / SUR
Valencia / Malaga
Friday, 8 November 2024, 17:25
The death toll was over 200 and the list of missing persons stood at 93 on Thursday this week. The sudden low pressure storm had left not only a huge trail of bodies and multi-million-euro destruction but also a strange sense of loneliness among those affected, who had seen too many days pass without receiving the attention they needed.
The perception that first the warning mechanisms and then the response strategy failed was growing. And the response of political leaders until just the middle of this week was light years away from the sensitivity deserved by shattered families who have seen their lives and belongings destroyed. That public response leaves a number of officials under the microscope.
Last Sunday, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, along with the King and Queen and Carlos Mazón, the president of the Valencia regional government, witnessed the anger of the residents of Paiporta, at ground zero of the storm, at the slowness of the state’s response to the tragedy.
Sánchez, despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, has refused to activate a Level 3 emergency under the national civil protection system, which would have led to the declaration of a national emergency and would have seen central government assuming sole command.
For reasons that are hard to understand, unless some kind of political calculation is involved, Sánchez has preferred to leave the management of a tragedy of this magnitude with a regional government, in the hands of his political rivals, that clearly lacks the necessary ingredients to deal with it. And above all, there is the exasperating slowness in the deployment of much needed emergency, health, police and civil protection resources, which were not definitively put in place until the visit of the King and Queen. Too much of a sense of political calculation, which is not compensated for by aid - the 10.6 billion - which is clearly not enough to restore normality to the province of Valencia.
Carlos Mazón, head of the Valencia government, is the political decision-maker who has been most criticised for the management of the storm. The slow response, first to the data provided by the state body monitoring water levels in the rivers, the untimely telephone alert to the population and, later, the failure to immediately request Level 3 from the government so that it could take over the management of this crisis was a catalogue of errors. Mazón is undoubtedly facing the most serious political crisis since he took over the Valencia government, surrounded by a team of ministers whose lack of experience and determination have made them ineffective.
Locals’ frustration at all that is happening, or not, boiled over very publicly on the Sunday visit of the King and Queen to Paiporta. With them, as they got out of the cars, was Sánchez and Mazón. As mud and sticks started to be thrown, Sánchez was ushered away in his vehicle. He later claimed he had been hit on arrival by a stick - which investigators said they had been unable to prove - and his officials blamed “organised far-right agitators.” Mazón stayed longer but also withdrew.
This left the King and Queen talking to residents. Queen Letizia was hit by some mud, the mark visible on her face as she consoled those there. They were widely praised for lingering although the second part of the visit, to the town of Chiva, where it had rained the most, was postponed.
Publicidad
Publicidad
Publicidad
Publicidad
Reporta un error en esta noticia
Necesitas ser suscriptor para poder votar.