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Having overcome the health emergency caused by the coronavirus that has caused the death of 1,296 people in the Basque Country, the Basque political parties are preparing for the strangest elections in history. An electoral date not yet dated, although both the Lehendakari , Iñigo Urkullu, the PNV and the Socialist Party of the Basque Country ( PSE ) intend that they be held next July.

The Lehendakari gathered representatives of all the Basque parties for two hours this Thursday to listen to their proposals and met with the accusation of the PSE-EE Secretary General Idoia Mendia . Before the representatives of all the Basque parties, Mendia blamed Urkullu for "seeking a confrontation" with the Pedro Sánchez government in full de-escalation.

The Basque parties used the meeting held in Lehendakaritza to consolidate their positions in the face of an imminent electoral campaign. The playing field is already marked and Urkullu knows that his decision to hold the elections in July - the dates of 12 or 19 are being considered - will have the explicit support of the PNV, the Socialist Party of the Basque Country and Equo Berdeak .

The three opposition parties in the diluted Basque Parliament managed this Thursday in private and in public their criticisms of the Urkullu movement with their sights set on the upcoming elections. The Lehendakari and his guests only agreed to postpone any decision until May 14, 15 days in which the Department of Health hopes to confirm the decrease in infections.

Distance between partners

The next two weeks are also the fertile ground for the PNV and PSE-EE to specify whether it is compatible to maintain their growing differences within the Urkullu Government while addressing drastic changes in the budgets of the provincial councils and the Basque Executive to achieve resources earmarked for socio-economic priorities.

The distancing between the two partners in the Basque Country -co-govern in the most important institutions- was evident when Secretary General Idoia Mendia spoke at the meeting. The leader of the Basque socialists ignored the debate on the advantages or disadvantages of the July electoral call to "invite" Urkullu to bet on dialogue "instead of seeking confrontation."

Neither Urkullu nor the PNV president, Andoni Ortuzar, present at the meeting, entered the dialectical melee with Mendia against rivals such as Carlos Iturgaiz (PP), Miren Gorrotxategi (Podemos), Arnaldo Otegi (EH Bildu) and José Ramon Basterra (Equo Berdeak).

Mendia made Urkullu ugly that in his criticism of the de-escalation plan proposed by Pedro Sánchez, he assumed the status of "single voice of Basque institutions" when what characterizes these institutions, according to the socialist leader, is "plurality".

The criticisms of Sánchez

The intervention of the general secretary of the Socialist Party of the Basque Country came just hours after Urkullu exhibited his deep discomfort with Pedro Sánchez, who publicly demanded that he cease in the "state of permanent protection" imposed on the Basque Country by decreeing decisions without have the Basque Government.

"The state of alarm and sole command cannot be maintained in this way," denounced Urkullu in the hours before Thursday's meeting with the Basque parties. An argument shared by EH Bildu, who has spent months seeking direct confrontation with the PNV to try to minimize the Basque pre-campaign as an option between the two acronyms.

The Basque PP is also unwilling to make it easier for Urkullu to hold elections in July when doubts persist about the evolution of the pandemic. Carlos Iturgaiz, candidate for Lehendakari by the PP + Cs coalition , confirmed after listening to Mendia the sequence of "ambushes" between the PNV and the Socialist Party, both in Madrid and in Vitoria. And he left the meeting convinced that "Mr. Urkullu and the PNV already had eyebrows to call the elections in July, although they have not yet said so."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • PNV
  • Inigo Urkullu
  • Basque Country
  • PSE
  • Basque Country Elections
  • Carlos Iturgaiz
  • Arnaldo Otegi
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • Descaled
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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