Carolina Darías, the current Minister of Territorial Policy, has been tipped for some time to be the replacement for Salvador Illa as the head of the Ministry of Health, after it was announced that he was stepping down to be the PSC candidate in the Catalan elections. The rumour has finally been confirmed this afternoon by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who confirmed the appointment after communicating it to King Felipe VI.
Carolina Darias San Sebastián was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on November 25th 1965, she is a career civil servant of the Superior Body of Administrators of the Canary Islands autonomous administration, and has developed a long career since her debut in local politics in 1999, when she was elected councillor of her hometown by the PSOE.
She graduated in Law from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, and in addition to being a councillor, she has been deputy delegate of the Government in the province of Las Palmas (2004-2007), regional deputy (2007-2008), Government delegate (2008-2011) and PSOE spokesperson in the Cabildo de Gran Canaria (2011-2015).
In 2015 she became president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands and since July 2019 has been head of the Department of Economy, Knowledge and Employment of the Canary Islands Government. She left this position in January 2020 to be part of the central Government of Spain, led by Pedro Sánchez, as head of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function, taking over from the current president of the Congress Meritxell Batet. Now she faces the challenge of leading the Ministry of Health in the middle of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
