His name is Luis Manuel Martín Domínguez, he is a member of Vox, he was undersecretary of the Valencian Ministry of Justice and was dismissed on Thursday when a sentence for gender violence against his ex-wife was announced in 2011. He hit her and threatened her with a knife in front of his son, according to the ruling of conformity that he hid when he was appointed a senior position in the Generalitat Valenciana by Minister Elisa Núñez, also from Vox. When Carlos Mazón learned of the conviction he did not hesitate: he struck him down.
The case of Martín Domínguez is the latest episode in a series of events involving Vox officials in the Valencian Community that have generated great discomfort and annoyance in the PP. This has been a case of "concealment" of information by someone who aspired to, and managed, to occupy a relevant position in the Valencian administration. Did they know it in the national leadership of Vox? In the popular ranks they know that Santiago Abascal appoints his senior officials in the Valencian institutions from Madrid, without intervention from his Valencian team and, even less, without giving details to the Valencian PP.
Carlos Mazón acted quickly this time, but it is not the first time that he has been forced to intervene to "put out fires" originating from the ranks of his government partners since the legislature began, and three months have not yet passed. Since the pact reached on June 13 to govern the Generalitat Valenciana, there have been other episodes. In fact, even before the agreement between PP and Vox, the Valencian president was forced to intervene and mediate to prevent the far-right candidate for the Valencian presidency, Carlos Flores, from entering the Valencian executive. Flores, professor of Constitutional Law at the UV, was convicted more than 20 years ago for psychological abuse of his ex-wife. Vox placed him as the head of the list for Congress on June 23.
A few days ago, Vox also forced the PP to eliminate the words "sexist violence" from the banner that is usually used in the Valencian Cortes every time a woman is murdered. On several occasions, the ultra deputies had refused to stand behind the banner, which was widely reported by the media. The popular ones have replaced the banner with another with the slogan "against violence against women." This change has been criticized by opposition parties, who understand that the PP has given in to Vox, but it is true that the same slogan has been used, on occasions, in other events called by institutions governed by the left.
Vox's denial of gender violence has from the beginning been the issue that has generated the most tension between the two political forces. Before forming the government, a Vox deputy, José María Llanos, denied this type of violence before the TVE cameras. Carlos Mazón, to quell the discomfort generated by his partner, announced that he would create a vice presidency dedicated to addressing this new terrorism, and he did so. Susana Camarero is responsible for an area that also wants to assume the powers of managing the Offices for Attention to Victims of Gender Violence, until now assigned to the Ministry of Justice.
It is precisely the councilor of this area, Elisa Núñez, the same one who asked to dismiss her undersecretary, who a few days ago was not able to clarify what the future of these offices would be, which respond to a unique model in Spain, comprehensive to serve to victims of sexist violence. Carlos Mazón had to leave the next day to make it clear that these offices will continue and that gender violence is a priority of this Consell. Another fire that the Valencian president put out.
The issue of gender violence has been joined by Vox's offensive against the Academia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL, a statutory entity that recognizes the unity of Catalan and Valencian. Several Vox officials, including the president of the Cortes, Llanos Massó, charged against the institution and warned that they were not going to follow its rules on Valencian (the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, of the PP, also questioned the authority of this organism). The matter, which even included tweets from Vox del Consell officials, ended up being settled by the president, once again, who made it clear that the AVL was the regulatory entity and the authority over the Valencian. Those from Vox, in order not to use their rules, have chosen to make their messages in Spanish.
