“After last week's debate [the general policy one], is there anyone who still doubts our president's [Marga Prohens] determination to continue moving towards change? The balance of these three and a half years makes it very clear: the Balearic Islands have a solid Government, with a defined course and up to what the citizens expect. A Government that, unlike the left, plans, dialogues, and seeks consensus. A Government that [...] does not govern through improvisation, but with planning and rigor. [...] We have a president with enthusiasm and determination to continue governing from centrality, moderation, and common sense”. The author of this passionate praise is PP deputy Margalida Pocoví, a regular troubadour of the Executive's milestones. “From here, our resolution proposals”, continued Pocoví. The deputy made clear the order of her intervention: first, the exaltation of the leader, and then, the party's proposals.

For a good part of society, housing is currently 'The Problem'. There are those who have lost their home, who are waiting to lose it, who do not know if they will lose it... The social outburst has surprised no one. In any case, what is surprising is that it has been a civic outburst. Unfortunately, for a good part of the politicians, housing is the star topic of the campaign, the weapon to throw in the rival's face, an empty word. Because the bricks of the building of this economic sector that we call politics are precisely that, words that the professionals of speeches have emptied of content: 'democracy', 'freedom', 'equality', 'rights', etc.

In a television commercial from a few years ago, the players of a board game accepted the absurdity of considering an octopus as a pet in order to continue the game. In the same way goes the game regarding containment in the Islands. The Government boasts about something it calls 'containment', while the number of tourists has not stopped breaking records. It remains to be seen if this year we will reach 20 million tourists.

'Parliament' comes from the verb 'to speak', not from 'to listen', 'to negotiate', 'to dialogue', 'to reflect'. It is enough to spend a while in our Chamber to verify it. What it is about every Tuesday is to place one's own monologue and to get on top of the other. Debate? What is that? The deputies and the ministers are there to have their say, receive applause from their colleagues and leave for home satisfied if they have managed to post some video on social networks.

Psychologists Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and Thomas Toppino named the illusory truth effect in 1977. According to this cognitive bias, people tend to perceive information they have heard repeatedly as more true and reliable than information they receive for the first time. In other words, repetition is an effective tool of persuasion: it makes a message gain credibility through the act of hearing it. That said, I do not know if our politicians have ever studied the illusory truth effect, but they certainly master it to perfection, even if only intuitively.

Tourist saturation is one of the star topics of the legislature, especially when four years will have passed without structural measures having been applied to mitigate its effects. “The transformation of the Balearic Islands' economic model is the first challenge facing this autonomous community.” These words are part of the speech that the President of the Government, Marga Prohens, gave at the General Policy Debate on October 1, 2024. It is lucky that it was the first challenge two years ago, because if it had been the third or fourth, the residents might have already had to exile ourselves to the 'emptied Spain' to be able to breathe. “While being clear that we are a hospitable land where tourists are welcome, we all agree that we can no longer continue to grow in volume, and that the transformation of our model is non-postponable.” I am sorry, but here we must contradict Prohens: time has shown that the transformation of the model is entirely postponable. Two years later and about to end the legislature, the facts remind us of that Julio Iglesias song that said “la vida sigue igual”.

One of the main talents that serve to succeed in politics is the gift of timing. One can study, have a broad knowledge of society, be loaded with good intentions, want to change the world... Nothing like being in the right place at the right moment. And the Popular Party knows that at the current moment, the place is Ceuta. Some go there, like a good part of the Spanish government, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal. Others have received the president of the autonomous city, like Marga Prohens and Felipe VI. But the majority settles for a kind of spiritual presence and manifests their solidarity with the citizens of Ceuta, as if that served to fix a deep conflict, with multiple edges and complicated, which the Spanish political class has dedicated itself to simplifying and reducing to the absurd.