The Minister of Justice and Interior of the Valencian Generalitat, Elisa Núñez (Vox), continues without relieving the two high-ranking Emergencies positions that were once appointed by the Botanic – the previous progressive executive formed by the PSPV, Compromís and Unides Podem – . Despite the insistence of both the Regional Secretary of Emergencies, José María Ángel, and the Director General of the Interior, Salvador Almenar, both appointed at the proposal of the PSPV, to leave their responsibilities, the new incumbent has avoided terminating them.
While the Valencian Government is little by little completing its organizational chart, Núñez has made it clear this week that the Emergencies managers of the previous government will continue in their positions “temporarily and transitory” in the face of the adverse circumstances of this summer. A circumstance that has angered the leaders and revolted the party that appointed them; the socialists accuse Vox of not having the bench to occupy key positions in the Executive.
In fact, on June 15, after the PP and Vox agreement was signed to form a coalition government in the Valencian Community, it was already clear that the ultra-conservative formation would carry, among others, the portfolio of Justice . For this reason, it surprises the socialist ranks that since then no relief has been found for such a delicate position, and more so in these moments of heat and extreme risk.
Thus, Vox is having difficulty completing its organizational chart. In the first two rounds, he did not appoint any of the high-ranking officials in his departments (neither regional secretaries nor general directors). His most surprising signing was made public on Friday, August 4, when Extorero Vicente Barrera – first vice-president and Minister of Culture – chose Paula Año, a Valencian resident in Barcelona, ??as regional secretary, who rose to fame after denounce the consequences of the independence process in a television program.
Año joined the Catalan PP – she went on the popular lists in the 2021 Catalan elections -, although she ended up disenchanted and committed to the Valents project, a formation that emerged from Barcelona for Change after the departure of Manuel Valls. He went to the candidacy of this formation in the Barcelona municipal elections of 28- M. Barely a few months later, he joined the Valencian Executive through Vox.
With Año, the poet and critic Sergio Arlandis, professor at the UV and author of renowned works on the work of Vicente Aleixandre, Francisco Brines and Jaime Siles, who will occupy the general direction of Culture, and Pilar Tébar, who will manage the Department of Cultural Heritage. It is noteworthy that, after fighting so that the PP did not retain, as it intended, this competence in its ministry, Barrera ended up turning to a person like Tébar so closely linked to President Mazón, since she was currently the director general of the Institute Alacantí de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, an institution dependent on the Provincial Council of Alicante in which this art critic and UNED professor has worked since 2007. In Vice President Barrera’s organizational chart, all that remains is to complete the direction of sport
The replacements in the Valencian Council are generating controversy. Thus, even though in principle her termination was taken for granted, which was even published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat Valenciana, the autonomous secretary of Finance, María José Mira, remains in office. Mira was one of Ximo Puig’s signings in 2015, who even placed her at the head of the list for the constituency of Valencia (the PSPV candidate for the Generalitat went for the province of Castelló).
Mira’s case generated a lot of surprise in the socialist ranks, although the reason for her continuity – she has been closely linked to Ximo Puig’s project – can be explained by the requests of the Volkswagen Group not to create a break with those interlocutors who have made the project possible for the German multinational to install a gigafactory in the Valencian town of Sagunto. Mira has been one of the key pieces in this whole process, which is why his presence in an executive of the PP and Vox is expected to be temporary.
The one that will not be temporary is the continuity of the Director General of the Valencian Tax Agency, Sonia Díaz, and that of José Manuel García Duarte, who will remain as Director General of Information Technologies and Communications of the Council.
Coincidentally, all three (Mira, Díaz and Duarte) are in the Ministry of Finance, which is run by the ex-syndic of Ciutadans a les Corts Ruth Merino. And in fact, in this department, in addition to the ex-PSPV members, there are also two more ex-MPs from the orange formation.
With these maneuvers, the new president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, is trying to show that – despite his agreement with the ultra-right – he is not betting on a bloc policy and that he is able to work with positions inherited from the previous Government.
