The national leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will present Poli Suárez as the candidate for the Mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria this Thursday, July 16. The event, at the Hotel Santa Catalina, marks the start of the electoral race to regain the Gran Canaria capital, which has been in the hands of the PSOE since 2015.
The Popular Party has set a date for the kick-off of its campaign to reclaim the Gran Canaria capital. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the national leader of the party, arrives this Thursday, July 16, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to officially present Poli Suárez as the candidate for Mayor. The chosen venue, the iconic Hotel Santa Catalina, will host an event open to the public at 19:30, with which the PP aims to mobilise its base and project an image of unity around the candidate.
Suárez, currently the councillor for Education, Vocational Training, Physical Activity and Sports in the Canary Government and the general secretary of the PP of the Canary Islands, will balance his duties in the regional executive with the municipal campaign. His dual role gives him a visibility that the national leadership wants to capitalise on to break the socialist hegemony in the most populated city of the archipelago, with nearly 380,000 inhabitants.
A managerial profile to regain trust
The choice of Poli Suárez is not coincidental. The PP is looking for a profile with proven experience in municipal management: Suárez was mayor of Moya, a small municipality in northern Gran Canaria, where he demonstrated his ability to govern. Now, the party hopes that this formula will work in the capital, where the Popular Party has not governed since 2015, when then-mayor Juan José Cardona handed over the reins to socialist Augusto Hidalgo.
The bet on Suárez aims to bring to the Gran Canaria capital the same management formula that the PP applies in the Canary Government.
The public demands solutions to issues such as mobility and housing, and the PP wants to present Suárez as the manager capable of responding. The candidate, however, will need to explain how he will balance his agenda as a councillor with the municipal campaign, a balance he has already tested in previous elections.
The regional and national context
The PP governs in the Canary Islands in coalition with Coalición Canaria, with Manuel Domínguez as the regional vice president and president of the Popular Party. Domínguez will host the event on Thursday, alongside Feijóo, in a gesture that reinforces coordination between the national and regional leadership. The PP's strategy is to replicate the same government scheme at the municipal level that it already controls at the regional level.
Poli Suárez is not the only popular candidate for a major Canary city. Councillor Carmen Pérez, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, will also be presented at a national meeting in Santiago de Compostela just two days later. Both candidacies are part of Feijóo's strategy to consolidate the territorial power of the PP in all provincial capitals ahead of next year's regional and municipal elections.
For the residents of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the electoral race begins with a well-known candidate, but with the challenge of convincing an electorate that turned its back on the Popular Party in 2015. Thursday's event will be the first test for a project that aims to regain the trust of the capital's citizens.
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