2019, the turn to the left
In the Canary Islands, as in the rest of Spain, it was the 1978 constitution that established the rules of the political field. Since that date, the country has become a constitutional monarchy with Felipe VI as head of state, succeeding his father Juan Carlos I, after his abdication in 2014. This same constitution transferred to the regions an important part of the decision-making power and since August 10, 1982, the Canary Islands have an autonomous status, like the other 16 Spanish regions.
On the executive side, the local government is exercised by the Gobierno de Canarias, headed by a president, who sits alternately, every 4 years, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife or in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. At the legislative level, it is the parliament (70 members elected for 4 years and sitting in Santa Cruz permanently) that is master of the matter. And at the administrative level, the community is divided into 2 provinces: that of Tenerife which includes La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, with Santa Cruz de Tenerife as its capital and that of Gran Canaria which includes Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria as its capital. Each of the 7 islands is also governed by a cabildo, a kind of island municipal council, which enjoys some autonomy in the areas of culture, tourism, environment, health, roads and water, elected by direct universal suffrage for 4 years.
The regional elections of May 2019 marked a turning point in the governance of the Canary Islands by bringing to the head of the Gobierno, Ángel Victor Torres, PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Following an agreement reached on June 20, 2019 between the PSOE, the first party to win the regional elections, Nueva Canarias, Podemos and Agrupación Socialista Gomera, which ensured him the required 37 votes. The election ended 26 years of rule by Coalición Canaria, a grouping of nationalist parties that had held the post since its creation in 1993, often after an agreement with the right-wing PP (Partido Popular). It also partly sanctioned the suspicions of corruption that had plagued former president Fernando Clavijo Battle (concession of the municipal crane service in La Laguna) as well as former historical leaders (commissions on the construction company OHL). The same turn to the left was observed with regard to the May 2019 municipal elections. They saw the socialists conquer most of the municipal power especially in the two capitals, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and in most of the most populated municipalities, leading 60% of the population through 35 municipalities. On the other hand, Coalición Canaria suffered another setback, losing its main municipal strongholds, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Laguna and the three town halls in El Hierro.
The preponderance of tourism
The Canary Islands' economy is strongly dominated by services, since the tertiary sector alone employs almost three quarters of the active population and generates an identical percentage of GDP (gross domestic product). This is a long-standing trend that has only increased over the years. This sector is itself strongly dominated by tourism, which accounts for an average of about 50% of service sector jobs and 50% of its GDP. And more than 30% of the overall GDP of the Canary Islands. Even if the money earned does not always benefit the islands, since the many foreign companies present often invest the money earned in their own country or pay their annual taxes in headquarters located in the mainland. In addition, other activities in the secondary sector are highly dependent on tourism, such as construction, which employs nearly 8% of the working population and nearly half of all secondary jobs. While this activity contributed a great deal to the economy of the archipelago from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, it was deeply affected by the financial crisis of 2008, which led to the freezing and abandonment of many construction sites, whose "corpses" can still be seen today, because removing them would be far too expensive. In the secondary sector, Tenerife and Gran Canaria have 80% of the industrial companies and more than 90% of the jobs generated by this sector. The industry has also developed in port activities and oil refining (the most important center in Santa Cruz de Tenerife) as well as in the food industry, associated with the refrigeration industry. With 10% of the cultivated land, agriculture has a minimal share in the Canary Islands economy. The main products are barley, wheat, vines, potatoes, bananas and tomatoes, which are sold in Spain and Europe.
And always the ground y playa
If the arrival of European elites in search of calm and good health allowed the installation of luxury tourist infrastructures in the north of Tenerife, from the end of the nineteenth century, it is a completely different model of tourism that has generated the tourist boom, begun in the 1960s with the development of regular shipping lines, between the islands and with the mainland, and accentuated in the 1970s by the multiplication of air transport. This led to the creation of numerous hotel complexes in the south of almost all the islands in order to offer vacations on the beach, if possible at the lowest possible cost. Although often denounced by some tourism professionals who would like to replace it with a quality tourism, valuing the culture and the inner wealth of the archipelago, this Anglo-Saxon model of tourism development continues to thrive. Perhaps also because the English are still the first market of the Canaries. In 2018, the Canaries were the third Spanish destination, after Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. But also recorded its first decline in the number of tourists: 13.7 million compared to 15 million the previous year, from the English at nearly 40%, followed by the Germans, more than 20%. Analyzed as a consequence of the revival of certain Mediterranean destinations such as Turkey and Egypt, it has led to a price war between islands not necessarily heralding a new tourism model.
