Carlos Mazón is the first Alicante president of the Generalitat Valenciana. During Ximo Puig’s tenure at the head of the Consell, his condition as president of the Provincial Council of Alicante, especially once he was promoted to the regional presidency of the PP and designated as a candidate for the position he occupies today, has allowed him to act in practice as leader of the Valencian opposition without having to occupy a seat in Les Corts. So that his arrival at the Palau has been interpreted in the circles of Valencian political and media power as a “landing” of the people from Alicante; or better, of the “return” of the people from Alicante.
Because Eduardo Zaplana from Cartagena was in practice, and because personalities such as Luis Fernando Cartagena, his first Minister of Public Works, who would be convicted of corruption due to events that occurred during his previous stage as mayor of Orihuela, his city, played a very relevant role in his government. Or his faithful José Joaquín Ripoll (Alicante, 1957), a powerful vice president whose political career would be cut short by his relationship with the so-called Brugal case, already being president of the Alicante Provincial Council.
In that first government of Zaplana, Diego Such (La Nucia, 1953) also figured, a colleague in the City Council and in the Department of Economics of the University of Alicante of the new Minister of Education, University and Employment, José Antonio Rovira, born in San Vicent del Raspeig in 1962.
Later, another deceased San Vicentero would join, José Ramón García Antón, who from his position in Public Works and Transport was perhaps the one who left the greatest mark on the territory of his province thanks to projects such as the Alicante TRAM, the Anti-Raid Works that were undertaken in the city after the 1997 floods, the Taibilla-Amadorio pipeline that solved the supply problems of Benidorm and the Marina Baixa, or the road that connects his town, Sant Vicent, with Sant Joan d’Alacant.
Curiously, although chroniclers tend to attribute the decline of Alicante influence in the Council to the arrival of Francisco Camps, the Valencian included more Alicante citizens in his government than his predecessor, since, apart from those mentioned, only Fernando Modrego, from San Sebastian but rooted in Benidorm, became councilor with Zaplana.
It was Camps who trusted Gerardo Camps, also from Benidorm, to manage the Economy and Finance, in addition to having Miguel Peralta, former mayor of Alcoi, keeping García Antón in his post and including Milagrosa Martínez (from Córdoba by origin, but mayor of Novelda), the former president of the Alicante port, Mario Flores, Angélica Such or Gema Amor, also from Benidorm and who was present yesterday at the inauguration of Nuria. Montes, the third from Alicante of the Consell Mazón, if we discount the fact that he was born in Madrid and include the president himself in the count.
However, it is not unreasonable to relate Camps’ undisguised confrontation with Eduardo Zaplana to the fact that José Ciscar (Teulada, 1961) was the only Alicante resident in his last government, to which was only added, with Alberto Fabra as president, Asunción Sánchez Zaplana (Alicante, 1965), at the helm of the Ministry of Social Welfare in the last executive of the PP until the one he just took office.
Names aside, the truth is that Zaplana, like Mazón in his recent campaign, did make a political banner of the “Alicante question”, in matters such as the water deficit, and showed an evident effort to leave his signature in the territory through “emblematic” projects, a term that he was in charge of making fashionable. His determination was so great that his impatience, his desire to put them into operation during his own tenure, led him to commit the imprudence of promoting Terra Mítica or City of Light with public resources, without waiting for a private investment that required longer and more rigorous study periods, with the results known to all.
The truth is that the years go by and it continues to give the impression that Ximo Puig tried to combat it with measures such as the establishment of the Department of Innovation in Alicante, unspecified ideas such as “bicapitality” and projects such as Vega Baja Renhace or Distrito Digital, that something is wrong with the cohesion of the territory, that the economic and political power of the capital does not quite understand the demands of Alicante and listens to them like the father who does not understand that the son is not a child, but an adult who wants to be treated as an equal. which means, in this case, receiving what corresponds to the fifth province of Spain by population and contribution to GDP.
Meanwhile, what underlies offices in Alicante, in the offices of the industries in Torrellano, Alcoi or Ibi, in professional meetings in Torrevieja or Benidorm, is a certain distrust of the presumed influence of the ruling classes and the economic power of Cap i Casal, who are blamed for a supposedly damaging railway line, as well as for the decline of its port or the scant investment in cultural infrastructures and public works.
And little effort is devoted to addressing the shortcomings of a too dispersed province that has not been able to share its virtues and takes pleasure in lamenting its deficiencies. The mayors of Alicante and Elx now promise to work towards the creation of a common area of ??influence that is claimed from the business community. But proposals of this type were formulated in the past and, until today, they have always remained in borage water.
This distrust towards Valencia, conveniently agitated during each electoral campaign, whether justified or not -a matter that would require a more leisurely and extensive analysis- offers revenues, which require the beneficiaries to return them in some way. How Carlos Mazón will do to achieve this, how his government will irrigate the banks of the Segura and Vinalopó, how much will the allocations for railway connections, theaters, auditoriums, health centers or Alicante schools increase, or what more or less “emblematic” projects will remain in the territory after passing through the Palau, are the unknowns that the new president must resolve to gauge whether the so-called “Alicante power” is something more than a myth and entertainment for columnists without ideas.
