Young Basques no longer vote constitutionalism: "Socialist grandparents die and their grandchildren vote for Bildu"

UNDER REGISTRATION

• LEYRE IGLESIAS

  @Leyre_Iglesias

Updated Saturday,27May2023-00:31

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Isaac Palencia was born in 1987, militates in the Socialist Party of Euskadi and wants to be mayor of Renteria, Guipúzcoa. Daniel García was born in 1996, has a PP card and believes that he can govern Labastida, Álava. The two represent a new time: neither of them has walked with an escort. But both also represent a paradox and an exception: when ETA has disappeared and it is assumed that at last equal conditions between parties prevail, young Basques do not vote for the parties that are in power.

They confronted terrorism. They choose a nationalist ballot, preferably that of

EH Bildu

, or abstained. That is, either they do not vote or they vote for the heirs of the violent.

"There is no generational change," he explains.

, professor of Political Science at the UNED tanned in the Euskobarómetro of the

, a prestigious survey that for 25 years thoroughly analyzed the identity, preferences and changes of the Basques. "The electorate of the PP and the PES ages a lot. Socialist grandparents die and their grandchildren either abstain or vote nationalist, preferably to Bildu. But certainly not, or very little, constitutionalist, "he explains.

The data support this analysis. The average age of PP and PSOE voters are the highest: 60.1 and 57.9 years in the last regional elections, according to the

. Among Basques aged 18 to 24, the largest voting memory corresponds to EH Bildu (21.1%), followed closely by abstention (20.3%) and then by the

PNV

(16,7%). Between 25 and 34 years old abstention (21.7%), EH Bildu (18.1%) and the PNV (16.3%) win. In these age groups the votes for socialists and popular are very scarce (between 0% and 8.9%).

For decades, when the name Rentería (39,200 inhabitants) was heard, the first thing that came to mind were burned containers and buses. In this fiefdom of the Spanish left – four mayors of the PSE for 25 years – ETA killed the municipal policeman and socialist militant

, and executed the double crime that perhaps best expresses the cruel persecution of non-nationalist politicians. In 1997 the organization murdered the councilor of the PP

and a year later to his replacement,

. Both were friends and humble coppersmiths. Today, a quarter of a century later, no one from the PP sits in the plenary and EH Bildu governs with the support of

Can

. What happened?

"In part all that is not taken into account," responds Isaac Palencia from the house in the town of Renteria, the most attacked. "I think it's unfair, but we have to look to the future: nobody is going to vote for you for what you've done in the past, but because you're useful and work for what people care about: housing, employment...".

Between 18 and 34 years the most supported party is EH Bildu

Born in

, the socialist candidate arrived with less than a year in Renteria, where his parents - he, a miner - had relatives and were looking for a better life. After working as a football referee and setting up a company selling sports equipment, Palencia wants to turn the PSE back into the first local force. Bildu, he says, has "a long way to go", but the Socialists work "day by day" to achieve it.

Isaac Palencia, socialist candidate in Rentería (Guipúzcoa).

UNANUE

ARABA PRESS

The truth is that the Basque non-nationalist vote is in steady decline, and not only among young people. According to the data of the analyst and former leader of Euskadiko Ezkerra

, "the big drop" in this vote in the Basque Country occurred between the general elections of November 2019 and the regional elections of 2020:

PSOE

PP

Vox

and Podemos also lost half of its support. They went from 557,074 to 272,580 votes. Aulestia and Leonisio agree in pointing out at least one cause: the vote of no nationalism is reactive. That is, it is activated as a reaction to what it sees as a threat to independence. It happened with the

, and in Catalonia with the

when

Cs

He won the election. But now that sovereignty is lethargic.

"The disappearance of ETA and the way in which it has disappeared have opened a stage in which the situation of tension that we lived ten or fifteen years ago has deflated, and that has generated a feeling of relief and forgetfulness quite palpable," explains Aulestia. "Along with this, nationalism has parked the independence movement. The PNV is not making a sovereigntist speech. And EH Bildu either: his speech is close to Podemos and the ease with which he handles his government pacts in Madrid and with issues such as the Housing Law is leading to a whitening that helps him to accommodate and forget the past. Their campaign focuses a lot on the future: they present the past as the mud they want to drag them into."

But the past is there. It has been 12 years since ETA does not kill and five since it was dissolved, and yet the bad forecasts for non-nationalist parties persist. The PSOE aspires to remain, installed almost as an appendix of the PNV in a coalition that will probably return to take over a good part of the municipalities and with at least two of the three deputations, owners of the provincial haciendas. The unknowns this 28-M are basically limited to Vitoria and Guipúzcoa, PNV and EH Bildu dispute the triumph. And that the capital of Alava was a popular banner.

A problem has not evaporated from the years of lead: the PP still has a hard time completing its lists and has gone to other regions to ask for help from its militants with the argument that, even without terrorism, "the lack of freedom and intimidation are still present by the heirs of those who until recently killed".

"It's unfair, but nobody votes for you for what you've done in the past."

"On the one hand there is the important presence that the [central] government, also before the PP, always gives to the PNV and now to Bildu. Against that it is impossible that socialists and popular can do anything here, "he says.

, Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of the Basque Country.

"It also happens that after so many years of terrorism, the Basque social reality has been completely disfigured," he adds. Chacón recalls how among the first murdered were the politicians of

, with what that meant for the democratic right to take root in many Basque municipalities.

There is also the phenomenon of exiles due to threats or fear, who never again voted or had children in Euskadi, although calculating them rigorously is almost impossible today.

There are also public spaces "totally controlled by nationalism", stresses Chacón, in which there are no flags of Spain but there are ikurriñas and even posters in favor of ETA prisoners.

And, finally, "an internalized fear" continues, because the past is very recent and was "very hard".

Daniel García is presented by the PP in Labastida (Álava).

PAULINO ORIBE

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'There is still hostility'

"There is no longer violence but hostility," summarizes Daniel García from Labastida, a small town of 1,500 inhabitants nestled in the Rioja Alavesa and overturned in the wineries. There this young man won the 2019 elections, but did not achieve the mayor's office due to a pact between the PNV and EH Bildu.

García is an economist, published with only 16 years the book

(Círculo Rojo, 2013), has worked in a tourist accommodation, and did something as rare to be Basque and young as it is to join the PP. Although he specifies that the

It is a special area. He is right: there the PP was strong for years and, says Garcia, it can be again.

-And what is the relationship with EH Bildu in the village?

-It's a small town. The personal relations in the plenary are cordial and a shared good intention to work for the people. We have clear red lines with Bildu and when they propose ideological motions we already know that we are not going to agree. But this is a village and here you have to agree on a senior center or for LED lights. Although of course it hurts that four years ago they snatched the mayor's office from us because we are not nationalists. Because that was the reason.

Fernando Molina

, professor of History at the University of the Basque Country expert in the study of nationalism, looks further back when asked the million-dollar question:

Why have the parties that were victims of ETA not come out strengthened from their end, but on the contrary?

-To a large extent that is part of how the

, because it did not resolve how to establish a mobilizing patriotic dynamic. That is to say, the Transition was an improvisation based on certainties that facilitated the pact between Francoists and anti-Francoists on a consensus in which the idea of the Spanish nation did not generate conflicts. The weight of the nationalism that had been experienced in the dictatorship was reduced to become a diffuse Spanish nationalism or patriotism that does not appear in the streets and whose symbols are not visible in the

and

, in the face of a peripheral nationalism that, on the other hand, is built from the culture of anti-Francoism.

Molina argues that, even after ETA, the problem with so-called constitutionalism is that "it lacks a national narrative." With all these deficits, the "explicitly Spanish" is not related to "democracy, modernity and progressivism", even though "we are at the moment with less weight of independence sentiment among the Basques".

And why do young people vote for EH Bildu? In this campaign, and beyond the controversy over its candidates convicted of terrorism, the coalition of

Arnaldo Otegi

has reinforced a profile close to Podemos, which, although often forgotten, starred in 2016 a huge surprise by winning the general elections in Euskadi surpassing the powerful PNV. The strategy of EH Bildu is to steal as much vote as possible from the purple, who have self-destructed in the Basque Country with the invaluable help of

Pablo Iglesias

. And it seems that the move is going well for the Abertzales. Another thing is, as the socialist candidate of Rentería says, that it be fair.