Next electoral exam: the Basque socialists will seek a clash with Bildu to avoid the 'BNG effect'

Josean Izarra Vitoria

Victoria

Updated Tuesday, February 20, 2024-03:57

Last Saturday,

Eneko Andueza (Eibar, 1979) showed the mayor of Barcelona

Jaime Collboni

(PSUC) the center of

Vitoria

before highlighting the links between Basque and Catalan socialism, the two territorial organizations of the PSOE that will enter the electoral fray sooner. how late The PSE-EE candidate for lehendakari ignored his partner

De el Gómez Besteiro

when he was guarding arms and still aspired to co-star in the 'change' in Galicia. After the disaster at the polls, Andueza yesterday avoided journalists before and after meeting with

Lehendakari

Urkullu

and with the president of the

PNV

Andoni Ortuzar in the run-up to the imminent call for the Basque elections.

Andueza

smiled a lot yesterday in front of the photographers and conveyed his assessment of the last meeting with

Urkullu

and

Ortuzar

in a message recorded by his communication team. It was not his turn to talk about Galicia after the bitter election night and even less so when the Basque socialists continue to boast of their electoral victory in the general elections of 23-J and use their colleagues from the PSUC with Salvador Illa as their guide as closest references.

In the Basque

PSOE

they reject any parallel between their objectives to be "determining" in

Euskadi

and the role played by

Gómez Besteiro

in the shadow of the

BNG

. Andueza does not raise any rupturist flag but, as he repeated yesterday after breakfast at the

Ajuria Enea

palace , he values ​​the institutional "stability" of the

PNV

. "We have achieved that the policy of Euskadi has focused on addressing the needs of Basques," said Andueza after leaving the official residence of Urkullu.

In his long pre-campaign - he was the first candidate to be ratified by his party in October 2023 - Andueza advocates a "change of script" to improve public services and swears that he will not support a Bildu 'lehendakari

'

.

"It is much easier for a socialist voter in Galicia to trust the BNG than for one of us in Bildu," say sources from the Andueza team. In fact, the leader of the Basque socialists and his 'head of the list' for Guipúzcoa

Denis Itxaso

have used statements by

Pello Otxandiano

in which he defined ETA as "a political cycle" to attack him.

Andueza

reproaches Otxandino for "pretending to lead a country without recognizing his direct responsibility for the suffering" caused by ETA.

The "despicable expression" used by the EH Bildu candidate is now used as a throwing weapon by Andueza despite the fact that Bildu is the most loyal partner of the PSOE in Madrid and Navarra and that in recent months it has supported the last four laws of the Urkullu Government. The Basque socialists do not fear a transfer of their votes (289,000 on 23-J) to EH Bildu although they are aware that part of these ballots were loaned by PNV sympathizers.

But, in addition, Andueza presents itself as the only alternative to the "sovereignty drive" represented by Imanol Pradales (PNV) and Pello

Otxandiano

(EH Bildu). Aware that the electoral magnet will be played around well-being and the solutions proposed to improve the Basque Health Service or to increase the supply of housing, Andueza has deployed an intense agenda of sectoral events that touch on the social issues that lead the surveys. The socialist candidate has been the first to open

Pandora

's box of electoral promises with the offer of free public transport on the Basque metro, buses and trams for those under 26 years of age and for the unemployed.

The Basque socialists aspire to achieve up to 13 parliamentarians (they currently have 10) and in the face of the fall that all the surveys already predicted for Besteiro, the Andueza team is confident of making profitable the good assessment that the Basques make of the matters managed. by the three socialist advisors of the Urkullu Government.

The electoral pull that the polls predict was the argument used yesterday by Arnaldo Otegi (EH Bildu) to question the "overwhelming" electoral victory of the PP in Galicia. Otegi, who is negotiating with ERC and the BNG to go together in the European elections, denounced a "dirty campaign" in which the Galician nationalists achieved an "extraordinary result." Delighted with Sánchez, he twisted the data to highlight the result of those who advocate the "government of opportunity" of the PSOE in Madrid.