santa cruz mayor international guests meloni machado bad bunny

Santa Cruz mayor dreams of Meloni, Machado and Bad Bunny visits

Mayor dreams of high-profile international visitors

The mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, José Manuel Bermúdez of the Canarian Coalition (CC), has set his sights on attracting internationally renowned figures to connect with the city’s migrant population and to make the carnival an even bigger event. Following the visit of Pope Leo XIII, he now dreams of hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, and Colombia’s president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella. “And Bad Bunny, of course, but only if he gives us a 50 per cent discount,” he joked.

The nationalist leader made these remarks in an interview published this Sunday by El Día, the Canary Islands newspaper of the Editorial Prensa Ibérica group. In the wide-ranging conversation, he discussed various aspects of municipal management.

Electoral considerations behind the wish list

The four personalities named by Bermúdez have a clear electoral angle. Meloni, Machado and De la Espriella were chosen because the largest foreign nationalities in the city after Spaniards are Venezuelan, Italian and Colombian respectively. In the case of EU citizens, they are only eligible to vote in Spain in municipal elections.

It is notable that all three political leaders Bermúdez would be delighted to welcome to his city are of an ultra-conservative ideology. One of them, María Corina Machado, does not even hold any institutional office.

Carnival star power and past controversies

As for Bad Bunny, the reach and electoral value of the Santa Cruz carnival is undeniable, particularly if it attracts external recognition through the figures it invites to perform on its stages. However, such bookings can also have negative effects, as demonstrated by the controversy surrounding the hiring of Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra in 2019. That performance cost more than €500,000 and was contracted in such a striking manner that it raised suspicions with the public prosecutor’s office, which eventually dropped the case. Bad Bunny’s fee fluctuates between $750,000 and $1.3 million, depending on the format of his show.

Mayor takes aim at national government

Bermúdez also used the interview to comment on the national political situation, expressing a very different view from the spirit of concord that the President of the Government and secretary general of his own party, Fernando Clavijo, is trying, with limited success, to impose.

The mayor of Santa Cruz maintains that Pedro Sánchez should no longer be at the head of the government, specifically that he should have stepped down three years ago when he failed to get the first budget of this legislature passed. His assessment of the current situation is as follows: “Since there is no sufficient majority, Spain is governed by a series of announcements and royal decree laws, which the Cortes then fail to validate.” In his view, this means the country is “experiencing a major setback” and has become “the institutional laughing stock of Europe under Sánchez’s government.”

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