• Autonomous landscapes The Cainite war on the right of Navarre gives air to Otegi and Sánchez
  • Bildu poll threatens UPN's leadership in Pamplona

UPN wins the elections again in Navarre, but the regionalist party of Javier Esparza would only come to power in the impossible assumption that Pedro Sánchez reneges on EH Bildu. The most likely scenario is that the PSOE reissues the left-wing alliance that in 2019 led it to form a government with Geroa Bai and Podemos supported by the abstention of Arnaldo Otegi's party in the investiture of María Chivite.

Bildu is again key this time and the PSOE is again in his hands. The controversy over the presence of ETA in their lists reinforces the abertzales (who win two seats and for the first time surpass Geroa Bai, who loses two in turn) and does not bill the PSN, which remains as it was.

The left-wing bloc benefits from the centre-right split. In 2019, UPN, PP and Ciudadanos competed under the Navarra Suma brand and achieved 20 parliamentarians of the 50 representatives of the provincial Parliament. The coalition broke up last year after Esparza moved closer to Moncloa. Now, with 90% of the votes counted, UPN gets 15 seats, the PP gets three and Ciudadanos disappears. Not even the irruption of Vox in the Chamber with two deputies would allow Esparza to add more than his adversaries. So the PSN could reissue the tripartite joining its 11 seats with the seven of Geroa Bai and the three of Contigo Navarra (Podemos, IU, Batzarre, Alianza Verde and Equo, which were separately in 2019), with which it would reach 21 deputies, one more than the entire center-right.

Chivite would get the accounts if Bildu abstains in the second round of his investiture, as in 2019. Otegi, for whom it is a priority to prevent the right from governing at all costs, needs to be good with the PSOE, which is key to controlling the Prosecutor's Office in the judicial cases opened against the ETA network.

The negotiation is likely to also include the Pamplona City Council. With 99% counted, the list most voted by only one councilor away from that of Bildu is that of Cristina Ibarrola (UPN), but without enough support to form a majority, so the strategy of the PSN to seize power and evict the center-right is to place its candidate Elma Saiz as mayor with the support of Bildu, as they did in Vitoria in 2015 to evict Javier Maroto (PP) from the City Council.

In Tudela, the situation is clearer. UPN has won with an absolute majority with 11 of the 21 councilors, so Mayor Alejandro Toquero will keep his seat.

  • Navarre
  • Navarre Suma
  • PSOE
  • Bildu

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more