Aceysele Chacón: “My biggest political disappointment was with Podemos”

“The biggest political disappointment I’ve had was with Podemos.” The spokesperson for Drago Canarias in Fuerteventura, Aceysele Chacón, declared this emphatically during an interview on the program La Voz de Fuerteventura on Radio Insular. She referred to the decisive vote of councilor Andrés Briansó that approved the island‑wide interest in the Dreamland film project in the Corralejo Dunes Natural Park in November 2022.

That pivotal vote also set Chacón on the path to active political participation and made her a reference point for Drago Canarias Fuerteventura, a party founded in 2023.

“That moment woke me up. I thought, ‘Yes, I’m going to get involved.’ Drago didn’t exist yet, but I was already angry,” she recalled.

Now, the Majorero politician balances her recent role as a mother with the task of consolidating Drago Canarias on the island.

“It’s a juggling act every day, but when the little girl smiles at you, the tantrums are forgotten,” she laughed.

After a period focused on her personal life, Chacón says it’s time to “take the time, start meeting people and rebuild the party in Fuerteventura,” convinced that the political space she leads “represents the feelings of many who have been let down by the old parties.”

“We’re becoming an island we no longer recognize”

Drago Canarias Fuerteventura recently warned about the reactivation of the Rosa del Lago partial plan, a massive urbanisation scheme in the municipality of Puerto del Rosario, near Puerto Lajas, that would add more than 2,500 tourist beds.

The party also highlighted that three heritage assets from the municipal catalogue could be jeopardised by the works:

• an ethnographic asset (the “charcos del embarbascado”),
• a paleontological site, and
• an endemic floral element.

“We demand transparency. The project’s status, the date of the licence, how it has been reactivated, and the measures to protect the heritage must be clearly stated,” she demanded.

Chacón acknowledges that the project dates back almost 30 years and has been legally reactivated to serve business interests. According to the mayor of Puerto del Rosario, David de Vera, the plan has been modified: the originally proposed golf course has been scrapped and permission for an artificial beach has been denied.

Despite the impact of 2,500 new beds in a town of only 1,500 residents, Chacón hopes public spaces can still be created.

“I wish there were spaces for public use—a school, a health centre, a park… but I doubt it will happen,” she confessed.

“We must stop growing; we must shrink”

Allowing these plans to proceed after the necessary licences could cause a serious loss of public revenue, Chacón admits. Yet she argues that tourism and residential development “has overflowed the whole island,” calling for a fundamental shift in the model.

“We have to stop, we have to calculate, we have to shrink.”

She is not shy about using a word many politicians avoid.

“We are not afraid to say it: we need to ‘open the melons’ to live better. We have about 130,000 residents, but we receive more than 2.2 million tourists a year. If we want a sustainable island, we must count those tourists too. I believe the island is no longer sustainable.”

Her recipe: limit tourist capacity and shut off the faucet of urban growth.

“Before more construction forces us to pay compensation, municipalities must set clear limits in their general plans: no more hotels, no more tourist apartments, no more holiday homes. Anyone who wants to do business should do it elsewhere.”

She cites El Cotillo as the clearest example across the Canary Islands:

“Development is happening so fast there is no time for anything else. There used to be a hotel; now there are plots where 20 ‘villas’ are built that are not homes but tourist villas. A person with an average salary can’t afford a house there.”

For Chacón, the town has “ceased to be a residential nucleus and has become a tourist nucleus,” fundamentally changing daily life—terraces now occupy public spaces, and the sense of a true town has vanished.

She also calls for the Canary Islands to receive special status within the European Union.

“We are 1,500 km from the continental coast. We are not a continental territory and need differentiated measures. To be sustainable we must limit air traffic and tourism—shrink a little, never increase again.”

Identity, coexistence and “hope”

Chacón stresses the need to preserve Majorero identity.

“We are a minority in our own land,” she says, backing the claim with data: only 33 % of Fuerteventura’s population was born on the island. She clarifies that this is not xenophobia but a call to manage growth, build schools, services, and foster coexistence—something impossible if expansion continues unchecked.

Regarding party organisation, Chacón notes that Drago is beginning to rebuild in Fuerteventura and that a similar movement is felt across the archipelago.

“The other islands are taking different steps, which is why we always say we have a confederalist outlook—each island follows its own rhythm and is different.”

She concludes that motherhood now gives her more free time to devote to politics and to consolidate the project ahead of the upcoming elections.