The PSOE's desperation to find something to alleviate its corruption scandals is backfiring.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, millions of Spaniards witnessed the clumsy attempt by the Socialist minister \u00d3scar Puente to politically exploit the forest fires affecting several Spanish provinces, using this disaster to attack his rivals in the People's Party six months after a serious train accident with 46 deaths, for which \u00d3scar Puente is politically responsible<\/a>.<\/p>\n The problem with forest fires is that they don't respect regional boundaries. This wave of fires began last week in La Mierla, Guadalajara<\/a>, devastating 32,000 hectares and forcing the evacuation of 34 villages in the worst forest fire in the history of Castilla-La Mancha, a region governed by the PSOE<\/strong>, that is, the party of \u00d3scar Puente. Currently, the fire affecting central Spain has already ravaged 2,000 hectares in Toledo<\/a>, which is now the province with the most roads closed due to the fire<\/a>. For those who don't have a good memory when it comes to geography, it should be remembered that Toledo is also in Castilla-La Mancha<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Likewise, it should be remembered that Catalonia, also governed by the socialists<\/strong>, has already experienced 461 forest fires this year<\/a>, with a total of 4,571 hectares burned. As you can imagine, \u00d3scar Puente didn't make a single criticism of his party colleagues for these fires<\/strong>, from which it can be deduced that the current Minister of Transport maintains the idea that fires that occur where the PP governs are the PP's fault, and fires that occur where the PSOE governs are the fault of everyone but the PSOE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Strictly speaking, there is no single cause of forest fires in Spain. According to the 2021 General Statistics on Forest Fires (EGIF)<\/a> (for some strange reason, it is the last year available in the statistical series published by the government<\/a>, which gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe importance it attaches to this problem), that year the majority of fires (52.53%) were intentional<\/strong>. 30.21% were due to accidents and negligence, 5.02% to lightning, 1.06% to the re-emergence of other fires, and 11.17% to unknown causes. One nuance: only 49.84% of these causes are known with certainty<\/strong>; the rest are based on assumptions.<\/p>\n Thus, wildfires are caused by factors that can occur anywhere in Spain.<\/strong> It is the responsibility of politicians to try to prosecute the individuals who cause these fires, whether intentionally or accidentally (since we currently have no control over lightning), and to do everything possible to minimize the amount of fuel available to the fires in the forests<\/strong>. Unfortunately, in this respect, the forestry policies of the PP and the PSOE are very similar, as anyone living in regions governed by these parties can attest.<\/p>\n Both the PSOE and the PP have subjected rural life to excessive regulation and bureaucratic hurdles that, in many cases, lead to neglected forests<\/strong>, increasing the likelihood of more devastating wildfires. Obviously, the easiest way to evade the consequences of their actions is to blame climate change<\/strong>, as Pedro S\u00e1nchez's government has been doing for years, and even point the finger at those they call \"deniers\" every time there's a fire<\/strong>, as if questioning anthropogenic climate change and the highly questionable policies some implement to combat it somehow makes you an arsonist.<\/p>\n This is a very crude way of silencing the abundant criticism from people who make their living from agriculture and livestock farming against the clumsy policies imposed by urban politicians<\/strong> who demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what it means to live in the countryside and who apply an ideological fanaticism that leads to the abandonment of rural areas<\/strong>, subjecting them to a barrage of purely ideological measures that make it impossible for any agricultural or livestock operation to be profitable. The abandonment of the countryside has fatal consequences in terms of wildfires<\/strong>, because it is one of the reasons why the forests have so much fuel when the summer heat arrives, since if nobody lives there, then nobody bothers to clean and care for the forests as they used to<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In case anyone has overlooked this fact, the PSOE has been governing Spain for eight years<\/strong> and is therefore responsible for many of the things that are happening now, especially for subjecting farmers and ranchers to unbearable conditions in order to carry out their work<\/strong>. When the socialists, without any shame, try to profit from the fires, what the PSOE is doing is opening a debate about the state of rural areas in which the socialists have everything to lose<\/strong>, since they are largely responsible for its current unfortunate situation. What \u00d3scar Puente has done is throw a boomerang that has ended up backfiring on his government and his party.<\/strong> And in addition to being bad managers, they are now also incredibly clumsy charlatans. They can't get anything right.<\/p>\n ---<\/p>\n
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