The great revenge of Zaplanismo
It is necessary to comb a few gray hairs to remember that cover of El Mundo in 2005 in which, in full offensive by a part of the PP and the most reactionary sectors of the Spanish Episcopal Conference against the gay marriage law of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Valencian popular regional deputy came out of the closet in public, recognized his homosexuality and asked his party to open an internal reflection on his political position. Felipe del Baño had acted as an adviser in the Presidency of the Generalitat with Eduardo Zaplana until, in 2003, he was included in the list of the Valencian Parliament, coinciding with the departure of his mentor as Minister of the Government of José María Aznar and the passing of witness to Francisco Camps.
For those who began in politics at the hands of the politician based in Benidorm, today awaiting trial in the Erial case, the succession of Camps was especially traumatic.. Sidelined, separated and marginalized in punishment for their Zaplanista fidelity, a good handful, those who decided not to change sides to preserve the public payroll, were victims of the bloody internal battle for power in the Valencian PP waged by the two former presidents and in the one that Camps imposed his law until the Gürtel case took him ahead.
That was the case of Felipe del Baño. Many of them have just returned to the front line, rescued by the new head of the Generalitat, the popular Carlos Mazón. New Age Zaplanism is now called Mazonism. The popular baron also began in politics at the hands of Zaplana, as general director of the Valencian Youth Institute. She came recommended by her true mentor, the deputy in Congress Macarena Montesinos, close to the former Telefónica executive at the guest level of the Mediterranean cruises investigated in Erial.
Separated as Del Baño, Mazón ended up in 2007 as a councilor in Catral, the small town in the south of Alicante, and in 2009 he assumed the management of an almost bankrupt Chamber of Commerce of Alicante, which had to refloat burning wheel town by town in search of income with his inseparable Santiago Lumbreras as chief of staff, today one of the strong men in the Presidency, recently appointed regional secretary for Institutional Relations.
Almost all of them have a liberal disposition and ideology, much less conservative and more pragmatic than the campist Christian democracy, although subscribed to hypercontrol, some of those Zaplanistas from the first hour, now Mazonistas, carry on their return to public life the bonus of better status of the one they left. Del Baño was appointed commissioner for the Fight against Violence against Women last Friday after a journey through the desert that, with Camps in power and in the eight years of Botànic, led him to occupy a position as councilor in his town, San Antonio de Benagéber, and practicing as a lawyer specializing in animal defense and collaborating in the office of Asunción Quinzá, defense attorney for Zaplana's exporter, Alicia de Miguel, in the case that judges Camps in the National Court.
Quinzá has also returned to the regional Administration as regional secretary for Equality. Her position is part of the structure of the Second Vice Presidency and Equality Department of Susana Camarero, the strong woman of the new Council, who also started in politics and was promoted as a parliamentarian by Eduardo Zaplana.
But if there is an appointment that represents better than any other, the great zaplanista revenge is that of the Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez. It was difficult for him to convince him, since he comes from overcoming cancer. Until now responsible for Medical Clinical Management at Hospital La Fe in Valencia, Gómez is probably one of the people who best knows the department for which he has been appointed head of. In the purest campsista style, far from dismissing him face to face, they emptied his powers until Marciano Gómez himself submitted his resignation in October 2004 fed up with contempt. Now he returns as number one.
It is true that Mazón has not made his electoral success an instrument of internal revenge. On the contrary. The best proof of this is the promotion of José Vicente Anaya. The mayor of Ayora was sparring with the new president in his party's primaries for the regional presidency in a candidacy with hardly any options in which the whole world saw the hand of Francisco Camps. Anaya has been appointed General Director of Management of the Socio-Health System. No rematches or punishments. As Zaplana himself once said when he took over the Generalitat in 1995: calm down, there will be something for everyone.