Carlos Mazón has designed an executive made up of professional and management profiles, and in which the new Valencian president concentrates all the political leadership of the Consell in his person. There are no leading political figures of the Valencian PP or of the Valencian right in its six councilors and councilors who can counteract their political weight, and not even the three chosen by Vox are a reference for the Valencian ultra-right. The new president has appointed a team with experience in his areas, which denotes the new president’s willingness to prioritize the management of an administration that is now beginning a change of cycle.
It is enough to compare with what was happening at the Botànic to detect this great difference: for years, Mónica Oltra and Podem discussed the political leadership of the executive headed by Ximo Puig. But it is that even in the executives of Eduardo Zaplana and Francisco Camps there were heavyweights of the Valencian PP who held strategic portfolios of the Consell, from Rafa Blasco or Juan Cotino to José Joaquín Ripoll or José Luís Olivas. On this occasion, no member of the Valencian executive has organic weight in the PP.
In this new government, and despite the presence of Vox, Carlos Mazón, with his team, will manage 95% of the budgets and strategic areas such as Education, Health, Social Welfare and Equality or Public Administration. Even to limit the scenic drive of the extreme right, he has removed the Environment from Agriculture, which is managed by Vox, and Equality and women’s policies are located in a vice presidency, that of Susana Camarero. The victory of those from Abascal is that they will manage all the Culture competitions, in the hands of the vice president and former bullfighter, Vicente Barrera. It will be necessary to see from now on how Mazón modulates Vox’s regressive impulse announced during the electoral campaign and in issues related to the Valencian.
Susana Camarero thus becomes a key person in the new Consell. She began her political career under the leadership of Eduardo Zaplana, and she has remained in the PP all her life. In addition to Camarero, two other ministers, those of Education and Health, José Antonio Rovira and Marciano Gómez, also held positions of responsibility in the Zaplana administration. Both know management in their respective areas. Rovira indicated yesterday that he wants to put an end to the Plurilingualism Law that the Botànic approved; which ventures new tensions in the educational sector. The new Minister of Education, Universities and Employment affirmed that “it does not make sense that subjects are imposed on students in a language they do not know at all”, with reference to Valencian. He was referring to the option of recovering the exemption of Valencian in the classrooms in the Spanish-speaking areas of Valencia.
For his part, Marciano Gómez was one of the promoters of what is known as the “Zaplana model” to privatize the management of Valencian public health. The PSPV and Compromís charged yesterday against these appointments, considering that “Mazón is a hostage to Vox and the old glories of Zaplana,” according to the socialist trustee, Rebeca Torró.
One of the biggest surprises yesterday was the great role that the former trustee of Cs and former right-hand man of Toni Cantó, Ruth Merino, will develop in the new Consell. She will manage the Treasury, Economy and Public Administration; and she will also be the spokesperson for the Valencian executive. In other words, she will be the image of the new government before the media. Merino, who is not affiliated with the PP and is a career civil servant in the State Treasury administration, responds to a liberal and very pragmatic profile. She is the one who is designing the plan to repeal, surely tomorrow in the first plenary session of the Consell, some taxes such as the property transfer tax or to reduce the income tax brackets for medium and low incomes promised by Carlos Mazón during the electoral campaign.
The president, who comes from Alicante, a province where tourism is its main economic engine, has chosen Nuria Montes, former general secretary of the Hosbec employers’ association, as councilor for Innovation, Industry, Commerce and Tourism. And for environmental policies he has appointed Salomé Pradas, a technician, as Minister of the Environment, Water, Infrastructures and Territory.
On the Vox side, the ultra formation will manage, in addition to the vice presidency, which leads Culture, the Justice and Agriculture portfolios. In the first case, the former bullfighter Vicente Barrera has achieved all the powers of Culture, despite the fact that the PP wanted to separate Heritage to take it to another ministry. In Justice and Interior, the department that allocates financial resources to the Gender Violence courts, has appointed Elisa Núñez Sánchez, she was already part of the Valencian administration in the time of Francisco Camps and has several degrees in Religious Sciences. Agriculture, which will also manage hunting and animal policies, Vox has appointed José Luis Aguirre who was vice president of the Official College of Agricultural Technical Engineers.
