Manuel Marraco Madrid

Madrid

Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-03:03

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The umpteenth brand of the nationalist radical left arrives at these elections with options to become, for the first time, the force with the most votes in the Basque Parliament. EH Bildu would thus surpass the popular support that

Herri Batasuna

, Euskal Herritarrok, AuB, HZ, AG, ASB, PCTV, Batasuna, Amaiur...

Its rival, centenary and with the same brand, insists in this sprint to the polls on remembering, without being as explicit as the PP, who EH Bildu really is. "But how much have they changed? Will it be real?" are the rhetorical questions, with an implicit answer, that are heard at PNV rallies.

The rise of this coalition - Euskal Herria Bildu was born in 2012 from the union of Sortu, Eusko Alkartasuna, Aralar and Alternatiba - occurs as it moves away from its original sin. At least chronologically, because ETA stopped killing in 2010 and announced its dissolution in 2018. The new voters

did not experience the terrorism

that the radical nationalist left supported, which allows the current candidacy to present itself as a focused formation far from radicalism.

He also changes his main face, which is now that of

Pello Otxandiano

, a 41-year-old engineer who fits into the renewed image that EH Bildu intends to offer for the "new cycle" to which the candidate constantly refers. For this it has been necessary for the perpetual

Arnaldo Otegi

to give up trying to be lehendakari. Not because he does not continue to be the main reference of the formation, of which he is general coordinator, but because the result of the electoral equation does not give the same result with his face in front.

In addition to accumulating decades as the image of the pro-ETA independence movement, he himself was convicted of terrorist kidnapping, terrorist glorification and attempt to re-found the outlawed Batasuna through Bateragune. A scant record if compared to that attributed to him by the Security Forces - although not by Justice - and that EL MUNDO revealed: participation in

nine kidnappings

and

one murder

.

The terrorist whitewashing has seemed to permeate those surveyed, despite the fact that, in reality, the condemnation of terrorism has never come, not even implicitly. After more than 850 murders behind the backs of ETA, EH Bildu and their entourage, messages of understanding have come out in recent years towards the pain of the victims, but nothing resounding against the gang. A strategy very similar to that of some ETA prisoners in the letters sent to the Penitentiary Surveillance judge to begin receiving permits. The

National Court

was not helped by messages that did not show real repentance. It also didn't help that there was no trace of any collaboration to try to clarify the more than 350 murders still pending to be solved. The prisoners do not collaborate and EH Bildu maintains that attempting to do so are things of the past that should not be removed anymore. This is the same argument they use against the victims' attempts to have some gang leaders answer in the National Court for murders committed under his direction.

In the 'rebranding' undertaken by the national brand, even the independence of the Basque Country has disappeared as an axis. It has been replaced by messages of centrality and social progress that, at least on a theoretical level, can hardly be rejected. The result is that young voters sign up for one of the many facets - environmentalism, housing, health - on which the coalition insists. At the same time, EH Bildu retains the veteran vote that already supported the electoral brand that it played when terrorism was still rampant.

The percentage of the vote that the polls give him for next April 21 would represent a ceiling for the nationalist formation. The CIS grants him

33%

of the votes, which is almost six points above his best result in regional elections (27.6%), the one obtained in the 2020 elections. In 2016 the support had been 21, 1% and in 2012, 24.6%.

The recent Sigma Dos survey for EL MUNDO offers very similar data, with 32.9% support for EH Bildu, just 1.9 points below the PNV, which represents a technical tie.

The result in other municipal or general elections does not allow homogeneous comparisons, but it does reveal the inertia that demoscopy experts value so much. And that of EH Bildu is clearly increasing. In the last general elections, it obtained

the same 5 seats

in the Basque Country

as the PNV, which barely surpassed it by a few hundred votes. A sixth representative from Navarra put them ahead of the Jeltzales in Congress.

The inertia of the 2023 municipal elections thus continued. Again, although the absolute number of votes was somewhat lower, EH Bildu obtained 1,050 councilors, above the 981 of the PNV. In those two elections, EH Bildu surpassed the marks obtained in the previous elections, as all surveys assume will happen on April 21.

From the approval of the Constitution until the illegalizations shook ETA's political front a quarter of a century later, Herri Batasuna had obtained support of between 14% and 18%, well below the 33% that is predicted for him today. The Law of Parties of 2002 put the pro-independence pro-ETA left in a quagmire from which it tried to get out with acronym dances. Its results were not good and it only began to see the light in 2012, when the Constitutional Court amended the Supreme Court's decision and gave the green light to Sortu. Thus opening the door to the elections to the party that now, under the acronym EH Bildu, will try to take the last step in the campaign that is missing to win the elections to the Basque Parliament.

That despite so much effort, things have not changed much in the Abertzale brand is reflected in the fact that in the past municipal elections it led to dozens of people convicted of terrorism, several of them for blood crimes. Equally significant about the new strategy is that, when it emerged due to a Covite complaint, Otegi stated that they had not realized it.