Drago Canarias to contest general election on 29 November

On Saturday, 10 October, Drago Canarias’s National Secretariat met in La Oliva, Fuerteventura, to discuss the call for a general election on 29 November. The party’s highest body decided to contest the general election under its own name, with its own identity and convictions.

Since its founding, Drago Canarias has been transparent with the people of the Canary Islands about its positions and any potential agreements with other coalitions, acting honestly and humbly. Following Saturday’s meeting, we therefore consider it essential to share with the public our analysis and the reasons behind our decision to contest the general election.

The election brought forward for political gain

The PSOE has been in government in Spain for more than eight years: alone, with external support, from 2018 to 2019; in coalition with Unidas Podemos from 2020 to 2023; and, since 2023, in a plurinational coalition with Sumar.

During this period, and specifically between 2020 and 2023, the coalition government had a majority in Congress and could have legislated on housing, but did not. This left people across Spain and in the Canary Islands without protection from evictions and exponential rises in house purchase and rental prices.

It did not legislate to limit or prohibit the purchase of homes for speculative purposes. Nor did it introduce effective, deterrent tax measures for large property owners that could have improved working people’s access to such a basic right as having a home to live in. We therefore believe that the early election has been called by the PSOE as a cynical means of stemming the loss of electoral support reflected in every poll.

It is also worth recalling that the PSOE–Sumar coalition government — comprising Izquierda Unida, Más Madrid, Comunes and Movimiento Sumar — gave many other reasons to doubt its capacity to govern effectively: three consecutive years without approving the General State Budgets; a submissive attitude towards the Moroccan Government, made clear by its change of position on the Sahara; abandoning the people of Ceuta and the migrant population; and repeated deadlocks in Congress because it lacked the support of the very groups that enabled its investiture in 2023.

It is enough to recall that Congress repealed decrees on matters as significant as the rise in pensions; allowed laws such as the reduction in working hours and the reform of the Immigration Act to lapse; was unable to act on the so-called Gag Law; and that, since November 2025, one of the parties that supported the government’s investiture — the right-wing Junts — has blocked all government legislation.

We want to highlight in particular an issue that directly affects the Canary Islands: the unilateral change of position on Western Sahara in 2022. Without consulting Congress, its own coalition partners or the Canary Islands Government, the prime minister abandoned Spain’s historic position and backed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara, betraying the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and United Nations resolutions. Congress itself rejected the decision, leaving the PSOE isolated. The consequences are felt especially in the Canary Islands, given their proximity to the territory, including in the delimitation of their waters and the management of migration flows.

The early election also means the government is letting lapse a bill to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born under Spanish administration. Congress approved it just a month ago, and it was awaiting approval by the Senate: a historic debt once again left unpaid.

This brief account makes clear that Drago Canarias’s assessment of the PSOE’s opportunistic decision is correct. Many bills that would have eased the pressure on working people in the Canary Islands and their purchasing power have lapsed.

Drago Canarias was founded to offer an alternative to this way of understanding and practising politics, in opposition to those who exploit the misfortune and suffering of broad sections of Canary Islands society for partisan gain.

The rise of the far right

In short, we believe the rise of the far right and its growing appeal among working people in the Canary Islands are due, on the one hand, to the coalition government’s inability to address everyday problems such as access to housing, the rising cost of living and the lack of certainty people need to build a present and future with a minimum standard of dignity.

On the other hand, they stem from the glaring lack of self-criticism among state-wide and Canary Islands parties in what is known as the “space to the left of the PSOE”. They remain silent and immobile in the face of PSOE corruption cases, submission to Morocco, poverty and social exclusion figures, and the coarsening of political life, to name just a few examples. This lack of self-criticism and social activism is leading some people to seek a response to their discontent, and to a system they feel does not represent them, in reactionary positions.

That is why, despite the criticism and systematic harassment we have faced from political franchisees from Madrid and their sympathetic media, Drago Canarias has always called out injustice and disrespect towards the people of the Canary Islands, wherever it comes from.

We work in every space and forum in which we participate to build a sovereign, Canary Islands-based and progressive alternative.

Drago Canarias, the political alternative

We firmly believe that a Drago Canarias ballot paper on 29 November will give people hope and help curb the growth of the far right. It will give many people an option to vote for a clean, independent Canary Islands political force that answers exclusively to the interests of those who live in the Canary Islands. These are people who do not feel represented by extreme-right and far-right organisations, by state-wide organisations based in Madrid, or by those who call themselves nationalists but bow to those organisations or put business owners’ interests ahead of those of the social majority.

Drago Canarias has been carrying out extensive activism, awareness-raising and organisational work throughout the Archipelago through its various territorial units and spokespersons. Its aim is to listen to community organisations, understand problems at first hand and put forward proposals for change.

In short, Drago Canarias is the only credible alternative committed to tourism degrowth, promoting economic diversification, limiting the purchase of homes for speculative purposes, fighting for sovereignty over our territorial waters, taking on and managing responsibilities for coasts and airports, and passing a Residence Law — all in a transparent way and with accountability to the public.

Lead candidates for the Congress of Deputies by constituency

The electoral list for the constituency covering the western islands — the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife — will be led by Alberto Rodríguez, a councillor on Aguere — San Cristóbal de La Laguna — Town Council, with extensive experience as a member of the Congress of Deputies and a victim of lawfare agreed upon by Spanish right- and left-wing forces.

The list for the constituency covering the eastern islands — the province of Las Palmas — will be led by Héctor Morán, Drago Canarias’s Head of Organisation and Confederal Relations, with extensive technical and political experience in the Congress of Deputies and the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.

The two candidates will lead a proposal to give the Canary Islands back the voice stolen by political defections, Spanish politics and the Spanish justice system.

The Canary Islands, as a nation, will never again be silenced and gagged.