Marga Prohens (PP) will be the new president of the Balearic Islands in a solo government in which there will be no Vox councillors. The two parties sealed an agreement yesterday that allows the investiture with the abstention of Vox.
The agreement involves important programmatic concessions in subjects such as Catalan or sensitive aspects of equality or democratic memory policies. The text speaks of “intrafamilial violence”, but also of violence against women in a complex balance to satisfy both parties. The Balearic law of memory, which the PP opposed, will also be repealed, but not that of Fose, which was approved unanimously.
There are also transfers in other institutions, so that Vox will indeed enter the governments of the councils of Mallorca and Menorca, where they will govern jointly, since their votes are needed in both institutions. The councils manage important powers ceded by the Balearic Government, such as territorial planning, town planning and tourism. It is not known for now which areas each of the two parties will manage. In the case of Ibiza, the PP achieved an absolute majority.
The virtual president avoided comparing her negotiation with that of other colleagues of the PP, such as the extremist María Guardiola, and recalled that, in her case, an abstention was enough, since the PP managed 26 deputies, one more than the entire left together. Vox has eight deputies. “I fulfill my promise and the mandate of the citizens of the Balearic Islands”, said Prohens, after remembering that at all times he opted for a government without Vox.
There is a key element that has allowed the negotiation between the two parties to close. The creation of a commission that will be in charge of monitoring that Prohens fulfills exactly what has been agreed. Vox, for its part, guarantees that it will not present an amendment in its entirety to the budgets and will provide stability as long as this commission certifies that the agreement is being fulfilled. “I want to be a president for everyone”, said the PP candidate. He justified his agreement with Vox on the fact that it was the only party that “extended his hand” when he began to negotiate. “We said that we would respect the voters of Vox and that we did not want them to give us the gift of abstention, and we have complied,” he added.
Prohens stated that the agreed program leaves both parties “satisfied” and did not want to reveal whether it will be equal. “We will give way to another way of governing without interventionism or prohibitions, but with incentives and freedom”, he emphasized. He also added that the agreement “allows eight years of failed policies to be changed”. The leader of Vox in the islands, Jorge Campos, assured that the pact is positive, but considered that the only way to put an end to “linguistic discrimination” is to approve a law for the whole State.
As already happened in the Valencian Community, the leader of Vox will be a candidate in the general elections and his exit was one of the factors that favored the agreement.
The Balearic PSOE regretted the “shameful” pact that involves “assuming the ideology of the ultra-right” and “a clear danger to the historical consensus and social advances that have cost the island’s citizens a lot of sacrifice and that the PSOE will defend with all possible strength”.
Prohens’ investiture is scheduled for July 3 and 4, but he will not be elected on the first ballot. The session will resume 48 hours later, so the 6th will be elected with Vox abstaining.
