highly questioned for the management of the dana crisis, will announce this Friday in the Valencian Cortes a profound restructuring of its Government in order to adapt it to the reconstruction of the areas devastated by the flood of last October 29. He plans to create a vice presidency for reconstruction, a macro portfolio to coordinate infrastructure, economy, environment and emergencies, according to sources close to the Consell. It will also reinforce the current vice president and counselor for Social Affairs, Susana Camarero, who will assume the position of spokesperson for the Executive, a function that she has already been in charge of for three days due to the largest natural disaster in Spain in this century, which has caused at least 215 dead in Valencia. In this way, Ruth Merino, Minister of the Treasury, will cease to be spokesperson.
Mazón — who initially proposed the announcement for this Thursday, which was later delayed to Friday at 11:30 due to the red alert in Valencia — wants to take the political initiative and get out of the deep crisis of credibility that his Government faces due to an erratic and plagued management of contradictory versions, obscurantism and half-truths. The president, who hid his agenda on the day of the disaster until this newspaper, will dismiss Salomé Pradas, Minister of the Interior and Justice and political head of Emergencies, and Nuria Montes, head of Industry. It is considered that they will be replaced by two women, according to sources close to the Valencian Government. It is also not ruled out that Pradas, who is not a deputy, moves to another department in order to maintain her status as a member of the autonomous government.
The changes will be announced after his expected appearance, not in the Valencian Parliament. The autonomous government, which currently has nine ministries, including the Presidency, will have one or two more ministries, although the structure is still being finalized. With the creation of a second vice presidency, we would return to the model prior to Vox’s break with the PP as partners of the autonomous governments. Then, the first vice president was Vicente Barrera, from the party led by Santiago Abascal, and the second vice president, Camarero.
In his speech, Mazón will make an express self-criticism about his role in the management of the dana, without failing to mention the responsibility of the central Administration, in a not very long speech. He plans to give a detailed hour-by-hour explanation of his agenda for that day and will explain why he kept it on the cold drop day. The president met with the employers’ association and then had a long lunch in a well-known restaurant in Valencia when the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) had already issued the red alert and towns like Utiel had already been flooded. He did not arrive at the meeting of the Cecopi—Emergency Coordination Center, dependent on the Generalitat—, which met on an emergency basis at five in the afternoon, until around 7:30 p.m., according to sources familiar with the meeting.
Mazón’s intention is to show a humble attitude, recognize some errors, without changing the story he has been defending in recent days. The new Consell will be completely directed to the “reconstruction project”, according to sources from the Generalitat. He also wants to convey an image of credibility and security, two of the main problems that his Government has, two weeks after the fateful damage.
from the beginning for her silence and inaction and, above all, for admitting in an interview on À Punt, Valencian public television, that she was unaware that there was an instrument at her disposal to send an alert through mobile phones to all citizens to warn of the risk of flooding. That Es-Alert system was active and this had been recognized by his predecessor in office, Elisa Núñez, from Vox. Along with the counselor, her team headed by Emilio Argüeso, regional secretary of Emergencies, appointed by Mazón, will leave.
For his part, he was the subject of multiple criticisms for his lack of empathy with the families of the victims, whom he asked to stay in their homes and not go to the Valencia Fair, enabled by the regional government as a morgue, although he later he apologized. In addition, criticism also intensified for not having called in a week an official from her department who had lost her husband and daughter, according to the woman herself on television.
