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Galician nationalism is reconciled. After the abrupt rupture in 2012 between the two main factions of the Galician Nationalist Bloc, Encontro Irmandiño and UPG, the BNG suffered a setback that threatened its own disappearance from the main institutions, but everyone returns home and calls for concentrating the vote around the figure of Ana Pontón in the face of the regional elections.

Since 2016, when Ana Pontón leads the BNG, she promoted its refoundation, recovered positions and turned it into the second force in Galicia. However, the moral gesture of reuniting this political space was pending, in which the main threat came from the historic nationalist leader and co-founder of the BNG Xosé Manuel Beiras who, after the rupture, founded Anova-Irmandande Nacionalista and led, together with Yolanda Díaz, then leader of Esquerda Unida, the Alternativa Galega de Esquerda coalition (AGE), cradle of the tides and predecessor of Podemos, with Pablo Iglesias as advisor.

AGE unseated the BNG and became the third force in the Galician Parliament in 2012, but the internal splits were not long in coming, and from 2016 they also suffered from the irruption of Ana Pontón, entering a spiral that led to 2020 when they ended up disappearing from the Chamber. For some time before, Anova, and Beiras personally, had been distancing themselves from Podemos and in December they rejected the invitation to join Sumar in the general elections.

Finally, and as a result of months of dialogue, yesterday they consummated that reconciliation with the BNG. The co-founder and current national coordinator of Anova-Irmandande Nacionalista, Martiño Noriega, former mayor of Santiago, made the final gesture with Ana Pontón by signing an agreement between both formations to concentrate the vote of Galician nationalism in the BNG for the next regional elections on February 18. The act is more symbolic than practical, as it does not imply the integration of Anova into the lists for the next elections, but it is a coup d'état at the door of the Galician elections. One of the main moral burdens of this reconciliation comes from the hand of the historic Beiras, who sat behind Noriega and Pontón accompanied by other key personalities in the history of Galician nationalism.

The gesture comes to close ranks around the current leader of the BNG and break definitively with Yolanda Díaz and with the candidate of Sumar in the Galician elections, Marta Lois, fleeting spokesperson of Sumar in Congress and who was a councilor in Santiago with Noriega as mayor of the city.

"Politics that unites"

The symbolism of the event was highlighted by its protagonists. Noriega spoke of "healing wounds" and put Anova's "symbolic capital" at the service of the BNG. Ana Pontón, for her part, thanked Anova for its "capacity for dialogue, its constructive attitude and its high vision" at a "decisive" moment.

Noriega confirmed that the document is not about "grand bargains or the distribution of positions." The signed text details that the objective is to "join forces to promote political change" in Galicia. He stresses that only from a government led by a sovereigntist force "is it possible to change the course of the PP's policies". This process of collaboration is intended, they say, to "resize Galician sovereignty in the coming years".

For its promoters, it is an "act of responsibility". Ana Pontón argues that the time has come "to multiply and not to divide" and defends that the key is to "unite around the BNG all that vote that wants to defeat the policies of the PP and open a new era in the country".

The leader of the BNG and candidate for the presidency of the Xunta de Galicia puts reconciliation and the agreement signed yesterday as an example of "the policy that unites, that builds bridges and that is capable of overcoming short-term and partisan visions".

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