This is how the worst catastrophe of democracy was created

Dossier The Valencian anomaly 1 article

• This is how the worst catastrophe of democracy was created

ValenciaThe chain of management errors that led to democracy's worst catastrophe didn't occur in a vacuum, but within a specific government and with specific people. And that government, which emerged from the regional elections of May 28, 2023, was made possible thanks to a pact between the PP and Vox.

1. A "government of friends"

The first characteristic of the executive formed by Carlos Mazón is that the core group is made up of personal friends of the president, all from Alicante, who are mainly concentrated in the Presidency. Journalist Sergi Pitarch, author of the book The hours of chaos (Bromera) explains it this way: "It's so much a government of friends that Mazón shares an apartment with his chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca. The Secretary of Institutional Relations, Santiago Lumbreras, was his chief of staff at the Provincial Council; and the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, is a friend of his from his youth."

As we will see later, many of the executive positions respond more to Mazón's personal and political factors than to experience or expertise.

2. A government captured by the tourist lobby

The Alicante People's Party (PP) represents, above all, the tourism lobby. So much so that to fill the relevant regional ministry, Mazón recruited none other than Nuria Montes, the general secretary of the Benidorm tourism association, Hosbec. In his book, Pitarch cites the expression "policy capture," borrowing it from Joan Romero, emeritus professor of geography at the University of Valencia. "That means the atmosphere in the government is one of avoiding anything that might anger business owners by scaring off tourism," says Pitarch. "That week was critical because there was a long weekend, and business owners were rubbing their hands together," adds lawyer Manolo Mata.

Nuria Montes herself had tweeted against weather warnings when she worked at Hosbec: "After an alert in which two or three drops fell, I wouldn't be surprised if in a few hours they declare a tsunami warning if they see two or three ripples in the sea," she tweeted. Hashtags: #sageraos, #todoesuncuentoparanohablardeootherthing, and #lopeoresquesiguenysean. After the attack, she deleted the tweets, but some users took screenshots.

This atmosphere was also evident on the 29th when Mazón himself complained at a midday meeting with the unions about the suspension of classes at the University of Valencia "when it's not even raining," he said, according to sources present.

3. Emergencies, a "María" ministry

A third factor triggering the catastrophe is that both the PP and Vox consider Emergencies to be a "potential issue." "The far right initially claimed the regional ministry because street bullfighting permits depended on it," Mata comments. And when Vox left the government, Mazón gave the regional ministry to Salomé Pradas, who had no political clout in the executive and was essentially the PP's quota for Castellón.

"The difference with Ximo Puig is stark, as the Socialist made Emergencies dependent on the Presidency in his first term. And in his second, he made it dependent on the Minister of Justice, Gabriela Bravo, who is one of the executive's heavyweights. In contrast, Mazón placed the regional ministry in the Presidency."

Mazón gives so little importance to Emergencies that he makes another acquaintance of his, Emilio Argüeso, a former member of Ciudadanos who had helped him engulf the Orange party, his second-in-command. Neither Pradas nor Argüeso had any experience in emergency management. "If the minister had had more political clout on the day of the raid, like Núria Parlon, things might have gone differently because Mazón would have listened more to her," Mata concludes.

4. The top expert, on vacation

And so we come to the days leading up to October 29th. The top technical expert in emergencies, Jorge Suárez, deputy director general, is on vacation. Suárez hastily returns on the 29th, seeing the magnitude of the disaster, but he is not involved in the pre-emergency planning.

Suárez was the person who could have warned Minister Pradas of what was coming and demanded a meeting of the Cecopio in the days leading up to it. Suárez was also, on the 29th, the first to propose sending an alert to cell phones. His testimony before the judge, still undated, could be key in the proceedings.

Despite Suárez's absence, the department's technicians issued a press release on the 28th alerting people about the situation, which was picked up by all the media. The front page of the Levant The 29th opens with the following headline: "The threat of heavy rain closes classrooms and cuts off roads." And The Provinces He goes even further: "The heavy rain alert is suspending classes and raising fears of flooding." Despite the alert from his own government, all members of the Valencian government, however, maintained their normal schedules that day and made an effort to downplay the situation. Starting with Mazón himself, who appeared at 11:40 a.m. to say that "the storm is moving towards the Serranía de Cuenca." The following day, the Generalitat deleted the tweet that included his statement.

5. Mazón's team, out of Valencia

During the four hours that Mazón is at the El Ventorro restaurant eating with journalist Maribel Vilaplana, no collaborator interrupts him. "It turns out that that day the two people who could have entered the private room and removed him, Cuenca and Lumbreras, are not in Valencia with him. Cuenca is in Bilbao for a personal matter, and Lumbreras is in Alicante," Pitarch recounts about those fateful hours. The result is that Mazón doesn't begin to realize the tragedy until his first conversation with Pradas, at 5:37 p.m. But he would be very alarmed because he extends a meal that cost 160 euros for an extra hour.

Mazón has yet to clarify what he did between leaving the restaurant, around 6:45 p.m., and arriving at Cecopio at 8:31 p.m. "There's a gap between 6:58 p.m. and 7:34 p.m., a deafening silence, during which he doesn't take any calls. It wasn't until 7:34 p.m., when he spoke with the regional secretary of infrastructure, who was trapped in Paiporta, that he realized the magnitude of the tragedy" and set off. It was already too late. A day late, in fact.

Dossier The Valencian anomaly 1 article

• This is how the worst catastrophe of democracy was created