“It’s not only about what she did during almost all the council meetings she held, but she also committed something far more serious: she failed to hold more than a dozen sessions while serving as president of the Cabildo. Therefore, considering the potential for legal action, and given that administrative responsibility does not expire, we do not rule out pursuing legal actions against Dolores Corujo due to the severity of her disregard for the regulations and the law during her tenure,” says Pedro San Ginés.
Coalición Canaria Lanzarote has described the complaint filed by the secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote, current councillor of the Cabildo and MP in Congress, María Dolores Corujo, against the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, as “a true dishonesty and political sham” for questioning a simple date change for the council meetings. “While she was president, she flagrantly violated the law by failing to hold at least more than a dozen ordinary sessions,” says Pedro San Ginés, the island secretary of the nationalist formation.
The nationalist leader adds that the culmination of political cynicism is that Corujo herself violated the rules during her term, holding only five ordinary council meetings on the dates mandated by the Cabildo’s Organic Regulations, specifically the last Friday of each month, between June 2019 and April 2022.
Pedro San Ginés emphasizes that the PSOE cannot lecture anyone when Corujo herself committed far more serious violations. In the Spokespersons’ Meeting on 24 February 2023, the then Secretary-General of the Plenary noted and requested to record in the minutes that “eleven plenary sessions have yet to be held and by the end of February there will be twelve, not accounting for those cancelled due to the pandemic.”
San Ginés adds that “not only did she skip ordinary meetings, but in her four years of governorship, she only held one State of the Island Debate in 2022, once again violating the Cabildo’s Organic Regulations that require it to be summoned annually.”
The island secretary of CC further reminds that Corujo “not only committed all these infractions of the Regulations, but she also governed in a minority for three years with the support of a turncoat, Juan Manuel Sosa, who was bought off with public funds from the Government of the Canary Islands, and will now have to refund them, facing judicial condemnation in costs for appealing the return in an attempt to refuse to refund. Dolores Corujo would do well to remain silent given her own history of violations and illegality.”
San Ginés insists that Corujo “was the president who violated the rules the most, and in a far more serious manner, though it should be noted this was not due to an excess of work: she was the least active, to say the least, both as president of the Cabildo and as an MP in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, and remains so as an MP in Congress.”
Coalición Canaria highlights the “alarming lack of effort and political work” from Dolores Corujo. During her tenure as mayor of San Bartolomé and MP (2015-2019), she presented barely 108 initiatives in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, compared to the 339 from Oswaldo Betancort, mayor of Teguise and also an MP (2019-2023), both holding the same positions.
Furthermore, in the first two years of this legislature, Oswaldo Betancort has already presented 87 initiatives in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, combining this role with the presidency of the Cabildo, while Corujo only presented 14 in the four years of the previous legislature, being then, just like Betancort at present, president of the first island corporation and an MP in the Canary Parliament.
Moreover, currently, despite holding no governmental position at either the island or regional level, she has only presented 23 initiatives in the Congress of Deputies, compared to the 261 presented by MP Cristina Valido and the 132 presented by Pedro San Ginés in the Senate.
For his part, CC spokesman in the Cabildo, Samuel Martín, points out that the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, also has a dual parliamentary role, similar to that of the socialist deputy and councillor of the first island institution. “It is logical that the meetings are scheduled according to the parliamentary agenda of the president of the Cabildo, who holds the highest representation of the island. In any case, the PSOE MP in Madrid can choose: either attend the meetings of the Cabildo of Lanzarote representing the interests of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, or follow Sánchez’s dictates in Madrid. Let her decide where she wants to be and what is more important to her: Madrid or Lanzarote,” says Martín.
“Legal Actions Against Corujo”
On another note, San Ginés asserts that Coalición Canaria “never intended to judicialise this institutional illegality, in order not to further poison the political debate, but following Corujo’s hypocritical complaint, we reserve the right to undertake any legal actions we deem appropriate.”
He reiterates that “Dolores Corujo not only systematically did precisely what she now denounces, appealing to the regulations and plenary agreements regarding the scheduling of council meetings that she so often ignored, but she committed something much graver: failing to hold more than a dozen meetings, blatantly breaching the law and twisting democratic norms. If we are to judicialise this matter, what she did does not expire, and it is undoubtedly infinitely more serious than merely adjusting the date of a session to fit the parliamentary agenda of the Cabildo president, as she so often did herself,” he concludes.
