Vélez, rival of López Miras in Murcia, defends "the desalination plants" of Narbona: "Rajoy did not bring a drop"

On May 28, José Vélez will face Fernando López Miras at the polls and on June 28 he will have to declare, as an investigated, for the crimes of administrative prevarication and embezzlement of up to 250,000 euros in bullfights held in Calasparra, a town in the one who served as mayor from 2014 to 2020.

You have been a councilor, mayor, government delegate and now a candidate for the presidency of the Region of Murcia. Do you think this is your last service for the Socialist Party?

For the PSOE there will never be a last service, that will be when I die. I will always be in the position that corresponds to me or simply as a grassroots militant. I will continue working for my party and for the Region of Murcia to improve it and I will continue to do so from the position where my colleagues put me.. And if it is a grassroots militant, I will continue contributing what I can humbly do to change the Region of Murcia. Of course, I will only stop contributing to my party when I die, not before.

After 24 years linking defeats at the polls, Diego Conesa's PSOE managed to prevail in the 2019 regional elections, Fernando López Miras's PP, but a PP pact with Cs left them without the key to the San Esteban Palace. Is it an impossible mission to repeat that Conesa victory?

It's a very possible mission and it's going to happen. Four years ago they gave us 13 deputies and we got 17. Now, with me they give us 15 and maybe we are at 20, while the Popular Party is clearly decreasing and it is easy to perceive it. We have done our surveys and we know that what I am saying is true.. This Saturday, at the meeting in the Príncipe de Asturias Pavilion that I offered with Pedro Sánchez, the difference in the desire that citizens have to change the Government of the Region of Murcia was seen, so that there is a serious government that respects the people .

Murcian society is asking us to take a step forward and to govern the Region of Murcia seriously. I am very convinced that on the 28th we will govern this autonomous community. What happened on Saturday in the Príncipe de Asturias Pavilion, in contrast to what happened with the PP in that same place, clearly tells us the illusion that there is in people for a change to take place on May 28.

The PSOE did not attend the presentation of the last spring barometer because it is upset with the data reflected by the Murcian Center for Public Opinion Studies. Could it be said that the CEMOP of the Region of Murcia with the PP is the same as the CIS of Tezanos with the PSOE?

It is clear that the Partido Popular plays through the media with its own polls [CEMOP] and takes advantage of them for its benefit, but the public does not have that perception.. The CIS of Tezanos with the PSOE is very clear: it has been successful on the vast majority of occasions. On the other hand, CEMOP said in 2019 that we were going to get 13 deputies and weeks later we got 19, but it is also that the co-director of CEMOP [Ismael Crespo] has said that “with two more polls, we do not need to go vote in May”. I think that answers the question you asked me.

Do you think that Ismael Crespo should resign as co-director of CEMOP due to that electoral evaluation?

There is one obvious thing, if I had done something in that sense, of course I would have had to leave. What he said is a lack of respect for democracy, for citizens, for the rest of the parties and for whoever has hired him: the president of the Regional Assembly, Alberto Castillo. I suppose that Castillo should have taken some measure in this regard regarding that phrase that the co-director of CEMOP said, but nothing has happened in this regard, so I imagine that Castillo has his reasons.

Are you afraid that citizens will face 28-M in a national key, as a plebiscite for the central government?

Murcians have sufficient democratic maturity and know perfectly well that we are deciding who we want to govern the Region of Murcia. Another thing is that the Popular Party is trying to take the debate to the national level, to cover up the shame of the non-existent management of Fernando López Miras during four years of legislature.

How many deputies will the PSOE get according to their surveys?

I am convinced that we are going to be closer to 20 deputies than to 17. What's more, I would still dare to say that as I am seeing the increase that we are having in recent weeks and how the Popular Party decreases, the truth is that we could find very important surprises in the Region of Murcia on May 28.

With 20 deputies, he remains three short of the absolute majority in the Regional Assembly. Do you see yourself governing with Podemos?

I see myself governing alone, with the support of the citizens of this region.

Being summoned to testify on June 28 for the crimes of administrative prevarication and embezzlement in bullfighting festivities do you think that you can subtract votes at the polls?

clearly not. Citizens have spent years seeing the indiscriminate complaints that the opposition of my town is making and in a special way: the PP of Calasparra. Two of the complainants, the brothers Carlos Alajarín and Jesús Alajarín, left the PP for Ciudadanos, and they continued to denounce me, and now they have returned to the Popular Party because they continue to denounce me together.. There is one thing clear, dozens of complaints have been filed against me through civil, criminal and contentious-administrative proceedings, and I have won everything.

Since 2014, when I became the mayor of Calasparra, I have not stopped being investigated for a single day because as soon as the judge agreed with me in a case, they had already filed another complaint. Every time I win a complaint, they put another one on me and like this: dozens and dozens of times. The PP only denounces me to say that I am denounced, but they have never convicted me.

On the other hand, the PP already has a president sentenced to three years in prison and seventeen years of disqualification [Pedro Antonio Sánchez], another who is going to be tried, with a request for eleven years in prison [Ramón Luis Valcárcel] and the current president, Fernando López Miras, was declared a defector and that is corruption. In addition, López Miras is denounced for breaching the Transparency Law and it is feared that he is being overlooked in court.

The important thing is that in the PP they are sentenced and they have not sentenced me nor are they going to sentence me. The PP has a problem: they can denounce me and say that I am being investigated as long as they do not archive it, but when one has clean hands, the years go by and he wins everything. But what is the use of winning everything in court, what is the use of having continuous demonstrations of the White Tide, for health; of the Green Tide, for education, and of the ILP, for the environmental crisis of the Mar Menor, what good is it if we don't go to the polls later to change this ineffective regional government.

The PSOE has always been very critical of PP corruption cases. How does the PSOE now justify going to the elections with an investigated candidate? Where is the red line?

The red line is in the corruption plots of those who have been convicted. The Popular Party has a convicted president and another with an open oral trial and the difference is that I have not been convicted. In addition, all the complaints I have won. Filing a complaint is easy, you just have to justify it well for them to open the topic. Mr. López Miras has a complaint, but what happens is that for the moment the court has not spoken and the truth is that I am surprised that no resolution has been produced since the Transparency Council denounced him.

So, you didn't embezzle 250,000 euros in bullfighting during your time as mayor of the Calasparra City Council?

there is no embezzlement. It is a complaint for administrative procedures, but there is no breach of the rule, what happens is that the lawyer who presents the complaint, Juan Rigabert, is on the lists of the PP of Calasparra and the Popular Party of the Region of Murcia to have me investigated during the electoral campaign.

The approval of the Plan del Tajo by the central government of PSOE and Podemos, will cause a cut in the Tajo-Segura transfer in 2027. With that precedent, how does a Murcian socialist convince a farmer to vote for him?

Asking you to stop for a moment to reflect. In these years: Who has made any infrastructure so that water reaches the farmers? What did the PP do? Many 'water for all' banners, many appeals to the Supreme Court and many demonstrations, but what has he executed: the Escombreras desalination plant that brings more ruin to this region.

On the other hand, the Government of Spain, when it has been led by the PSOE, has started up the vast majority of the desalination plants that now supply us and is investing like never before, to expand the current desalination capacity.

When the works in the desalination plants are finished, we will produce more than 140 cubic hectometres per year, and if the ecological flows of the Tagus Plan rise from 6 to 8.65 cubic meters per second, it could mean, in the worst case, a decrease of 104 cubic hectometres per year in the transfer. If in the end we have 140 hectometres of desalination, the truth is that we will have gained 36 hectometres of available water in the worst case.

Do you consider that the Tajo-Segura Transfer has an expiration date with climate change and the increasingly strong episodes of drought that the Spanish Levante suffers?

That will tell us climate change. What we do know is that the transfer is essential for the PSOE, but we also know that climate change is here and is causing less rain and that is objective data.. We also know that there is a regional government that does nothing, that only puts up banners saying 'water for all', presents appeals in the Supreme Court that do not give a drop of water and that has built a desalination plant in Escombreras that Murcians like to cost more than 600 million euros. They live on lies and they don't want to come face to face with me, over water, because they know the house of cards will fall.

The PP has done absolutely nothing with water in 28 years, only the Escombreras desalination plant that will cost Murcians 600 million euros and the number of things that we could do in health, education, social policy and infrastructure. The first thing that we are going to do when we govern is to solve water forever for our farmers, ranchers and industrialists, and to drink, with the aim of not repeating what happened with Mariano Rajoy: eleven months without seeing a drop of the transfer.

If it weren't for the desalination plants promoted by Cristina Narbona: Murcia would have been chaos. For this reason, the Government of Spain invests 3,000 million, of which 600 million are for desalination: expanding the capacity of our desalination plants, interconnecting them to cover more land and enabling photovoltaic plants to reduce the cost of energy, so that the price is lower 0.34 cents per cubic meter forever.

You made friends with the president, Pedro Sánchez, during the primaries to recover the general secretariat of the PSOE in which you faced Susana Díaz. In fact, in his book Manual de Resistencia, Sánchez mentions. How is the head of the central Executive in short distances when it is only Pedro?

He is an excellent person who cares about the weakest. He is a person of his word who keeps his commitments and who is a friend of his friends. I cannot tell you anecdotes with him because that belongs to the more personal sphere, but what I did see at that moment was a committed man, who thought about solving people's problems and who was not fighting to recover the power of the PSOE, but to improve people's lives, especially those who have less. That was what motivated me to work with him so that we could recover the strength of the Socialist Party that soon after led us to govern this country.

He is the best president we could have had in these four hard years, with a pandemic, the La Palma volcano and the war in Ukraine. We only have to compare the management of this Government with the ERTEs, so that 3 million jobs are not lost, the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage, to 1,080 euros, or the minimum vital income, compared to what the PP did in the last economic crisis: leaving people unemployed and homeless.

At that time when Pedro Sánchez toured Spain in the primaries, he also made friends with Diego Conesa, the then mayor of Alhama de Murcia who hosted him at his home and who later led the Murcian PSOE in the 2019 electoral victory. Do you plan to repeal Diego Conesa if he wins the regional elections after he resigned as secretary general due to the failed motion of no confidence with Ciudadanos?

Diego is a comrade who is now working as a militant for the PSOE to continue advancing, so no one is repealed here because we have not fired anyone. It is not the same as what happens to the Popular Party, which is going to Vox and then tries to recapture someone from Ciudadanos. There is a continuous fight between PP and Vox, to take people from each other. After all: PP and Vox are the same, so people are constantly moving from one side to the other.

What do you think of Fernando López Miras's accusation against Pedro Sánchez that he has copied the youth housing guarantee because the Government of the Region of Murcia put it into operation more than two and a half years ago and some 400 have already been granted?

This man is so clumsy that when he wants to speak on his behalf, he shoots himself in the foot.. Murcia is the region with the most young people on average at the national level and in two and a half years, López Miras has only made 400 files to guarantee young people in the purchase of a home. Shame on him with that record, criticizing the Government of Spain for putting up a plan that will benefit thousands of young people from Murcia.

López Miras would have to be satisfied. If I were president, I would be grateful that these plans are put into operation: if I have a regional guarantee plan and the Government of Spain puts another plan in place, all the better. Here, the important thing is that our young people have the maximum facilities to buy a home. You can't get angry about that, what is shameful is that you criticize it, making clear its ineffectiveness and lack of management in housing matters.

Raising a motion of censure, in the midst of a pandemic, after the vaccination scandal of the Minister of Health, Manuel Villegas: Was it a correct or wrong strategy?

If you skip the waiting lists to get vaccinated, when thousands of people are dying, and you skip them taking advantage of the fact that you are in the regional government, and you also have to look the other way in these conditions, with the situation of corruption that you have the Region of Murcia, if with this situation we see how the lists are skipped and vaccinated with elderly people dying, and we have to look the other way: What region do we want if the Socialist Party that was the winner of the elections comes to look for other side in that situation? If we were to look the other way, we would have been complicit in the corruption of the Popular Party.

The AVE that connects Murcia with Madrid is monopolizing the complaints of the users for the price of their tickets, of up to 110 euros, and a travel time of 3 hours and 30 minutes. How will you solve the disappointing premiere of High Speed?

The one that is trying the most to mediate the criticism is the regional government of the PP itself. Precisely, those responsible for the AVE going through Alicante and Cuenca because the Popular Party agreed to it when it was ruling Murcia and Moncloa. What the Government of Pedro Sánchez has done has been to comply with the citizenship: they asked him for the High Speed to arrive underground and that has been the case. Once we have it, it is true that we have to continue improving, but from having the AVE, to not having it, is where the question lies.

A few years ago we couldn't talk about prices or frequencies: now we can, so the progress is significant. This community has had PP governments for many years that coincided with the PP in Moncloa and never did anything. They promised everything and did nothing. Now we have a government that keeps its word, listening to the public and I have no doubt that Renfe is working on improving frequencies. You also have to improve the price of trips and that can be done when the infrastructure is already done.

In addition, the Government is working so that we have the most modern suburban trains in Spain. There is no doubt that these works cause problems and I apologize for the inconvenience, but it is essential to move forward with this infrastructure, to improve the commuter service and take the AVE to Cartagena and Lorca, to connect with the Mediterranean Corridor. This project is being carried out by the Government of Spain and if the Popular Party of López Miras had a bit of dignity, it would not criticize a government that brings infrastructure and invests more money in this community in its entire history.

In the PP they are capable of deceiving the citizens in any way to scratch a handful of votes. The PP does not care about the people or the Region of Murcia: it only cares about the ballot box. It seems shameful to me, they now criticize the AVE, when they agreed to it through Cuenca and Alicante, instead of making the journey through Albacete.

What are the two pillars of your electoral program?

Murcia is at the bottom of all the progress markers and the truth is that one cannot be left with only two pillars. We are working with the organizations to adopt a social commitment to get this community out of the hole where successive PP governments have put us. We have 1,000 proposals so that this autonomy can advance, through the nine pillars of our program: Culture, Education, Health, Youth, Employment, Mar Menor and Sustainability, Equality, Transparency and Democratic Regeneration, Poverty and Inequality.

It is a necessary process to get this region out of the dramatic situation in which it finds itself.. The PP has been doing nothing throughout the legislature and when the campaign arrives, it dusts off all the projects that it presented to us 4 years, 8 years, 16 years, even 20 years ago, such as the highway to connect Lorca with Caravaca de la Cruz. And so, we could be talking about an infinite number of infrastructures. I say that the Government of López Miras has started the legislature, at the same time that I have started the electoral campaign.

What specific initiatives would a regional government led by the PSOE implement for the Mar Menor?

The fundamental initiative would be to comply with the law of the Mar Menor. This measure is strictly necessary: after 28 years of the PP poisoning the lagoon with its inaction. It is necessary to comply with this law because the regional government has not complied with it. The second thing we will do is implement the management plan for the Mar Menor basin because it is an obligation that includes that law and Fernando López Miras has not complied with that plan either.

At the same time, we will work together with the Government of Spain, whatever its color, because to save the lagoon we have to collaborate between the administrations. The Government of Spain is going to invest 484 million euros in an environmental crisis that we all know is the fault of the López Miras Executive because it has the vast majority of powers in that space. We could be talking about a ratio of 90 to 10, between the regional and central Administration, and we would not be fooling anyone.

Despite these powers, it is the Government of Spain that is investing in saving the lagoon, while the PP in the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 has budgeted 159.5 million euros for the Mar Menor, but has only executed 39 .5 million euros. In other words, they have stopped executing 120 million and have only invested 39 million in roundabouts, roads and in improving some squares and communication routes.

Do you plan to reduce the currently cultivated area in the Campo de Cartagena to reduce the impact on the Mar Menor?

What we have planned is that there is not a single centimeter of illegal crops and the Segura Hydrographic Confederation is working very well there. The exact number of hectares of illegal irrigation amounts to 7,913. A great job is being done from the Confederation, with little collaboration from the Government of the Region of Murcia. So what we must continue to do is work so that there is not one illegal hectare of land left. The way is to comply with the law and leave the crops that are legal.

In June 2022, the president of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, did not rule out the idea of biprovinciality. What do you think about turning Cartagena into the second province of this autonomous community?

We all know that for that to happen, more than one municipality should have been involved in that petition and if the case arises in the future: Why not? If there is more than one municipality with that interest, it will have to be studied and valued. I have it clear: I do not have an absolute 'no' as an answer.

Of course, the best thing would be done for the Region of Murcia and for those municipalities that requested it, but right now, our statute of autonomy talks about the regionalization and the Government of López Miras, could well have set to work on the regionalization of our region, instead of leaving aside everything. On May 29, we will get to work on the comarcalization of our region and if in the future, several municipalities ask for the province of Cartagena, we would study it.