Alex Trelinski
POLITICIANS who broke the rules by getting a first shot of the anti-coronavirus vaccine will have to take their proper turn to get the second jab.
Valencian President, Ximo Puig, has ordered the regional health ministry to withhold the booster shot from four mayors but refused to say whether they should quit.
Ximo Puig said: “I could not put any stronger that nobody who got the first vaccination in an appropriate way should receive the second dose.”
The PSPV socialist mayors of El Verger, Els Poblets, and Rafelbunyol, along with the Partido Popular mayor of La Nucia all received injections on the basis that the vaccines would have gone to waste if they had not been used immediately.
Speaking at a news conference, Puig was asked whether the mayors should follow the example of Murcia’s Health Minister, Manuel Villegas, who resigned yesterday(January 20) when it emerged that he had been vaccinated.
“It is obvious that political responsibility should be taken on board but the foremost thing is to assume that a mistake has been made,” he remarked.
Puig’s comment has been interpreted as suggesting that not enough regret has been shown by the PP mayor of La Nucia, Bernabe Cano and no inquiry has been launched by his party..
The three vaccinated PSPV mayors have had their party membership suspended until an investigation is concluded.
Cano is also a deputy on the Alicante Provincial Council and the leader of the centrist Ciudadanos party in the Valencian Community, Toni Canto, has demanded that Council President, Carlos Mazon, sack him.
Toni Canto said: “We are facing a new type of political corruption in the form of scoundrels who take advantage of their position to sneak in front of our elders and our health workers on an issue as important as this.”
No more ‘sneaking’ should happen in the region, as Ximo Puig claims that his new directive to the health ministry will make it ‘absolutely impossible’ for anybody to beat the wait to have a vaccine shot.
