The Republican Esquerra candidate for the mayor’s office of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Congressman Gabriel Rufián, and the Minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, have received criticism from several political parties this Monday for linking yesterday the construction of a second public residence for the older people in that locality to a good result of ERC in the municipal elections next May.
Leaders of Junts, PSC, En Comú Podem and the CUP have censored the republican formation, which has posted a video in which Rufián and Campuzano compromise the construction of said residence and public financing.
“The head of the list of Esquerra Republicana, Gabriel Rufián, and the Minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, agree on the second public residence for the elderly in Santa Coloma de Gramenet if the Republicans are decisive in the next term”, says the profile of the Republicans in Santa Coloma on social networks.
“Enough of excuses. Enough of saying that what doesn’t work in this city is always the fault of others,” said Rufián, referring to the current mayoress, the socialist Núria Parlon. In addition, the ERC spokesman in Madrid assured that if he manages to unseat Parlon he will promote the construction of this “necessary equipment to have the second residence for the elderly that this city needs.”
“We know that Santa Coloma needs a second residence,” confirmed Campuzano, who indicated that “the city council must have the will to build it.” If this will exists, said the minister, “the Generalitat and the city council will reach an agreement to build this second residence and to guarantee its public financing.”
From Junts per Catalunya, Campuzano’s predecessor, former Minister Violant Cervera, has stressed that “the construction of new residences for the Generalitat must be based on technical criteria and territorial needs, regardless of who governs”. “Linking it to the vote to a party is alarmingly sectarian. In addition to deceiving, Cervera has continued. “From what budget item”? has questioned the former minister. In a similar vein, the spokesman for the formation, Josep Rius, It has considered that “the Government cannot condition the construction of a residence for the elderly on the electoral result of a candidate from their party”.
The Socialist deputy Ferran Pedret has considered that the announcement is “an indignity, a baseness and an electoral blackmail that can respond to the desperation of Rufián.” In addition, he has accused the Government of “becoming an ERC campaign committee”.
“It is serious that a minister enters the campaign in the next municipal elections, endorsing promises that are not part of a country planning, and even more serious, that he does so by conditioning basic services to the electoral results of a party”, pointed out the leader of the ranks of the CUP in Parliament, former mayor of Badalona. “So serious that it must be a mistake, right?” She added.
The local group of the commons, for its part, has accused the Republicans of appropriating and using a historical claim made by the Santa Coloma platform of Gramenet SOS Gent Gran and Marea Pensionista. “The great electoral announcement is that ERC will exercise its powers in the Generalitat”, they have pointed out from the local account of En Comú Podem. Also some councilors of the formation in Barcelona or the deputy of the Parlament Jéssica González have expressed their complaints.
The president of the United Podemos confederal group and leader of the commons, Jaume Asens, believes that Esquerra “has crossed” a “fine but vital line for the rules of the democratic game that separates electoral promises from the Government’s commitments.” “Marketing to older people is infamous,” he has asserted.
After the criticism, Rufián has pointed out to Asens that “it is not a commitment from the Government” and that it is a commitment from the City Council. “We will build the equipment and hand it over for public management, something that the PSC has not done in 32 years,” he pointed out. “That is what we announced. And that is what we will do if we govern. Everything else is intoxication. And nerves. A lot of nerves,” added the ERC leader.
