Today marks the first anniversary of a tragedy and a major political failure. The tragedy requires no explanation: 231 people dead, the thousands who mourn them, and the thousands who have lost their homes, jobs, or livelihoods speak for themselves.
The great political failure has two parts. The first is that, with diligent action by the public administration, a good portion of these 231 deaths could have been avoided. By diligent action, we mean action that simply applied the established protocols. This was not the case, to the point that the Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, admitted that she was unaware of the existence of the mobile phone alert system for citizens, and that she didn't hear anything until 8:00 p.m. on October 29, 2024. "We recall that the reconstruction plan, entitled Endavant, provides for an investment of €29 billion."
The second part of this great political failure is the refusal of Mazón and the Valencian Council to assume responsibility, and, linked to this, the dismissive, often botched and hostile treatment of the victims and their families. The PP sought to spin the narrative about the Dana to turn it into another weapon against Pedro Sánchez and his government. Thus, the political management of the Dana, like any important or not-so-important current event, became another element in the power struggle in Madrid. As a result, the families of the victims were placed under suspicion and presented as manipulated, or directly controlled, by the PSOE and the left. Tension, and even confrontation, with victims' families, with disqualifications and disparaging comments directed at these individuals, is, in fact, a constant in the PP's behavior in situations of tragedies and catastrophes that occurred under its governments.
The use of deaths as a weapon of partisan attrition often has a double edge. As an extreme form of demagoguery, it can serve to burn the adversary, but it is also easy for those who use it to come away scorched. The victims of the downpours in the Valencian Community add to those of Covid in the nursing homes of Madrid, where of the thousands of people who died, many could have been saved if they had received proper medical care (but did not, in application of the so-called protocols of shame of the Community of Madrid, presided over by Ayuso). And now we must also add the women who have died or suffered serious consequences due to the negligent and incomprehensible breast cancer screening carried out by the Andalusian Government of Moreno Bonilla.
Cutting or skimping on public services has direct consequences when it comes to dealing with emergencies and saving lives. Trying to use tragedy and its consequences as a weapon for the worst kind of politicking is a way of wallowing in the mud.
