Ada Colau, the head of the list of Frente Amplio to Congress, has denounced this Sunday that "the greed of some in the Balearic Islands knows no limits" and has called on citizens to get involved to achieve, as in Brazil, turning around the polls and becoming "the big surprise" on November 29.
The former mayor of Barcelona has taken part in a rally of Ara Més-Front Ampli for around 300 people in Sant Jeroni square in Palma, where she warned that, also in Mallorca, "there is a majority that works and a minority that has decided that the island is not a place to live but to do business."
As she began her speech, Colau emphasized that she is not running for elections to be president of the Government, but "to make the right to housing effective," and she outlined a package of rules along those lines, including an annual tax of 10 percent on those who accumulate more than four homes.
The candidate of Frente Amplio described PP and Vox as "a pair of Siamese twins with a single agenda" and criticized their fixation on squatters. "You see squatters on every corner, but you don't see the thousands of holiday homes and the vulture funds," she lamented.
The driving force behind the Platform for the Mortgage defended that the truly useful vote is that of Frente Amplio and asked activists and supporters to get activated and "do education" on social networks, WhatsApp chats, families and the neighborhood in order to, as happened in Brazil with Lula, reverse the polls and achieve that Frente Amplio be "the big surprise."
She pointed out that polls already place the proposal of Frente Amplio at 8 percent support and that, by reaching 10 percent, it would be possible to go from 8 to 22 seats. "It is an achievable goal," she stressed.
Colau underscored that housing and taxation, which she defined as the two main engines of inequality, have until now been in the hands of socialist ministries, and she criticized that when it comes time to face economic elites and major speculators, the PSOE always ends up "shaking with fear."
For her part, the 'number one' of Ara Més-Front Ampli, Carme Gomila, reiterated that the coalition is not going to Madrid "to hand out a blank check to the usual policies."
In line with Colau, Gomila warned the PSOE that it will have to prove with facts "whether they are willing to change things."
"We are going to be the thorn in the shoe. If they want our support, they will have to demonstrate with facts that they are willing to change things," he insisted.
The lead candidate for Congress has also questioned the PSOE for its role in airport co-management, considering that it has not been "up to the task" when the possibility of promoting it was opened.
Housing has focused much of Gomila's intervention, who has denounced that more and more residents are being expelled from their towns and neighborhoods by the rise in the cost of living and real estate speculation.
"Between a family's right to have a house and a speculator's right to have 50, we are very clear about which we will defend," he said. Gomila has questioned an economic model that chains together records of wealth and tourists while a growing part of the population has problems making ends meet. "It can't be that everyone enjoys our islands except us," he proclaimed.
Carme Gomila has also sent a message to PP and Vox. "Feijóo, Abascal, Prohens, get it into your heads that we will raise the minimum wage, that we will put an end to speculation, that we will improve workers' conditions, that we will limit purchases to non-residents and limit the prices of basic food items."
"Our vote on November 29 is worth three, to combat fascism, to question the privileges of those who want everything to continue the same, and to transform the Islands," Gomila concluded.
Stop fascism and recover what was lost
At the start of the event, the 'number three' on the Frente Amplio list for Madrid, Toni Valero, has assured that the elections of November 29 are about "stopping fascism and recovering what the speculators have stolen from citizens."
"Workers are the ones who generate the wealth that the speculators are stealing from us: housing and the grocery basket. The whole act is going to be over for them," he added.
Valero has stressed that "it matters who governs in Madrid" and has warned that there are only two alternatives: a new government of progress or what he has called the "coalition of monstrosities." "Feijóo and Abascal come with the chainsaw to go for everything. They are the political arm of the rentier oligarchy," he said.
The coordinator of Sumar, Verónica Barbero, has defended the urgency of reviewing the Régimen Especial de Baleares (REB) to build a more diversified economy with a future.
Barbero has thus demanded to break the dependence of a single sector. "An island cannot be a place that everyone wants to come to for vacation and in which no one can come to work," he has pointed out.
The representative of Sumar has claimed that they have "been able to wrest" housing policies from the PSOE. "Housing has had a brake, which has been the PSOE, and an accelerator, which has been society that has not settled for it."
The 'number two' on the Ara Més-Front Ampli list, Sergio Cerezo, has called for representatives with courage to regulate housing and ensure that public services work. "We have not come to manage inequalities; we have come to fight the rules that produce them," he has said.
The event got underway with the complaint of the "illegal eviction" of the camp over housing in Palma, which a spokesperson for the coalition has described as "a democratic shame." The speaker has urged Palma's mayor, Jaime Martínez, to "not relax." "This Wednesday we will stop everything. Dignity is not evicted," he concluded.