In a frantic head-to-head between the nationalist forces, the Basque Country voted on Sunday, confirming the victory of the conservative Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) but in a tie in number of seats with the EH Bildu party of the independentist left, heir of Batasuma, the The former political arm of ETA led by Arnaldo Otegi. The latter managed to come close to overtaking the PNV, hegemonic for 40 years in the region with three consecutive legislatures behind it, which retains the possibility of renewing the government coalition agreement with the socialists of the PSE from the previous legislature. Bildu, with the candidate for governor Pello Otxandiano, obtains 27 seats (out of the 75 in the Basque Chamber), 6 more than in the 2020 elections in the midst of the pandemic. The same number as the PNV, which with the candidate for governor, the 49-year-old Imanol Pradales, who succeeded Inigo Urkullu, lost 4 of the 31 seats registered in the last legislature. A serious signal for the conservative nationalist party. In a Basque Chamber where the two nationalist forces add up to 54 of the 75 deputies, it will still be the socialists of the PSE, which confirms itself as the third force with 12 seats (+2) who will have the keys to governability. Its candidate, Eneko Andueza, has already said he wants to renew the coalition government with the PNV, confirming the agreement in force since 2016. The Spanish socialist prime minister himself, Pedro Sanchez, has ruled out a coalition with Otegi’s party, despite the two Basque forces are both vital, together with the Catalanist parties, for external support for the progressive Psoe-Sumar government in Madrid.
The People’s Party, renewed with the candidate Javier de Andres, who aspired to concentrate the centre-right vote, obtained 7 seats, gaining one. The ultra-right Vox retains its sole representative. While on the left Podemos records a debacle and loses the 6 votes obtained in 2020, remaining outside the Basque Parliament. The divorce from the confederate left Sumar, the coalition led by deputy prime minister Yolanda Diaz, which on its debut in the parliament of Ajuria Enea won only one seat, paid off. And even if Bildu’s electoral triumph will not translate into an ‘abertzale’, radical Basque government, due to the ‘no’ expressed by the other parties to allying with it, the result confirms the consensus on the strategic change desired by Otegi, former leader of Batasuna, to put identity and independence claims into the background – albeit without renouncing them – to focus on social issues and broaden the basis of consensus transversally. Modern progressive, ecologist, feminist, Bildu strengthens itself as the progressive alternative, also thanks to external support for the socialist government of Pedro Sanchez, which opened a window of opportunity for it, with convergence on social policies. Bildu focused on a new generation represented by Pello Otxandiano, 40 years old, a communications engineer with a career in Sweden, who managed to arouse hope in the Basque electorate in a new cycle, without the threat of terrorism. And despite the refusal of the Otxandiano himself to qualify Eta as a “terrorist organization”, but rather “armed group”, which attracted him the unanimous condemnation of the parties and victims’ associations in the final straight of the campaign. Thirteen years after ETA abandoned the armed struggle, six after its definitive dissolution, the Basques demonstrate that they want to turn the page on the past, leaving the ghost of ETA behind. The political scientist Pablo Simon points out that “only 20% are in favor of independence”, so the vote drained by Bildu concerns the debate on public policies and the ability to catalyze tiredness for the status quo and the discontent and anxieties of the young with respect to the future.
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