The interim president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, will appear this Tuesday afternoon at the investigative commission of the Danaa of the Valencian Cortes to report on the reconstruction work in the area affected by the flood of October 2024, which cost the lives of 229 people, and to submit to questions from the parliamentary groups. He does so a week after his resignation, on November 3, and his last public appearance in the plenary session of the Valencian government which took place the following day in Alicante. Since then, silence.
His appearance, which he makes at his request, takes place in the midst of absolute secrecy on the part of PP and Vox regarding the contacts and negotiations for his possible replacement at the helm of the Generalitat, with a deadline for presenting a candidate which expires on November 19th. And after new revelations that tighten the circle on his actions that afternoon, such as the fact that he continued to have lunch with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana until at least 6.45pm, when the then Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, had already informed him at 5.37pm. of the “extreme gravity” of what was happening in Utiel, as this newspaper revealed.
Mazón will speak in the commission in front of the victims’ relatives, who have not yet been summoned by his council, in which the PP and Vox, which chairs it, have a majority. Not even family members will be present in the room, although they intended to do so at the invitation of the PSPV-PSOE, because space is very limited and the Presidency of the Cortes, in the hands of Vox, has given priority to senior officials and advisors of the Presidency. You can follow it from an adjoining space. The presence of journalists will also be expected. On another floor, a room has been set up for victims’ representatives. Rosa Álvarez, president of the Dana 29-O Fatal Victims Association, has rejected this alternative, which she defines as shameful.
Mazón will be the first political official to attend the aforementioned commission, which so far has only held two sessions (in July and October), dedicated to technicians and experts, despite being the first established among all those underway (Senate and Congress). Mazón is summoned to the Congressional Commission on November 17.
Him president he intervenes on the same day in which the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, then vice president of Dana Teresa Ribera, and other members of the cabinet of the Spanish government were summoned, who refused to appear because they were not obliged to do so in the regional parliaments. Yes, they are expected to be present at the commissions of inquiry into the flood of the Cortes Generales.
The appearance will take place at 4 p.m. in one of the usual committee rooms of the Regional Chamber and the organization of speaking turns will take place in a first round of 3 minutes for each parliamentary group, 15 minutes for the appearing party; and a second turn for the parliamentary groups of 6 minutes and a final turn of the appearing party of another 6 minutes. However, the Board of Directors reserves the right to extend the times with a maximum limit of another 7 minutes “if necessary”.
Mazón’s statement aroused great anticipation because some details of what president He realized the dana day after the almost four-hour lunch with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana at the El Ventorro restaurant, when the tragedy was brewing. The head of the Consell, as revealed by Vilaplana herself, accompanied her around 6.45pm. on Oct. 29 in a parking lot near the restaurant, where he had parked his car.
It is the latest version of the steps taken by the head of the Consell on that fateful afternoon, steps shrouded in unknowns and details that remained hidden for almost a year. Mazón maintained all this time that he then headed to the Palau de la Generalitat, where he worked until he left in the direction of Cecopi, where he arrived at 8.28pm.
But new data revealed that Mazón He arrived at the Palau de la Generalitat around 7.45pm. or shortly thereafter, according to this newspaper. His stay was very fleeting, just a few minutes, he introduced himself and left immediately, around 8pm, for Cecopi.
The PSPV and Compromís have notified the president who has “the obligation to tell the truth” to the Cortes. From the PSPV, José Muñoz asked Mazón to take advantage of his statement to provide the invoice for El Ventorro, something that the socialists have asked for “actively and passively”, which is why he believes that this Tuesday could be “a magnificent day” to provide this document. Muñoz also demanded he show up with the phone company’s call log from that October 29, “not the handmade list (which he provided) in which we don’t know if all the calls are included.”
Of Compromís, his trustee Joan Baldoví also denounced Mazón’s “absolutely convenient” use of this commission of inquiry, to the detriment of the “interest in investigating and truly clarifying what happened” on October 29th. Furthermore, the coalition spokesperson regretted that in the Valencian Parliament “Mazón will appear before the victims, who were able to go to Europe and to Congress and here in their homeland have not yet been able to speak.”
On the contrary, the parliamentary spokesperson of the PP, Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca, was disturbed by the absence of the members of the Central Executive because they did not respond to the appeal of the Valencian Cortes. “They don’t want to come and give explanations,” he underlined on Monday after the spokespersons’ meeting where the process of approving Mazón’s appearance tomorrow was discussed.
The Acord Social Valencià entity – one of the organizers of the demonstrations that have protested every month for the last year against the management of Mazón de la dana – will gather around half past three in the afternoon in front of the Regional Parliament to demand “truth and justice”.
