On Sunday the Basques elect a new regional parliament. The opinion polls suggest two things. The first is that from it there will emerge another coalition government between the PNV (conservative nationalists) and the PSE (the Basque expression of the PSOE). The second is that EH Bildu (left nationalist, the political inheritors of the ETA terrorist gang) just might overtake the PNV as the most-voted party. If it happens it’ll be an earthquake in Basque politics even if it’s by a very tight margin. The PNV has been the most-voted party since 1980 and in power for all but three years since then.
EH Bildu’s candidate for Lehendakari (PM of the Basque Country) is called Pello Otxandiano and a couple of days ago he was asked if he’d say ETA was a terrorist organisation. To no one’s surprise, his reply was a masterclass in dancing around a question you don’t want to answer, and he even managed to get in a condemnation of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government along the way. He later said he was sorry that his reply caused hurt to ETA’s victims but he didn’t change it. And in some ways, I don’t blame him. If some of my comrades had cheerfully murdered people in the past I too would be careful what I said about them today.
EH Bildu has discovered that a large proportion of the Basque population is quite happy to vote for a party that regards blowing your neighbour’s brains out because he has a political view different from yours is an acceptable way of doing politics as long as you don’t talk about it much and concentrate instead on Lgbt issues, global warming and Gaza.
Digression: for those on the left these days no reply to a question, awkward or welcome, is complete without a reference to Zionism, Netanyahu, and the Palestinians. From unemployment to green energy, to unwanted teenage pregnancies, Gaza has swallowed left politics. End of digression.
The PNV’s candidate is Imanol Pradales and there’s a great interview with him here, one which exemplifies his party’s style of politics in that every reply is pragmatic and respectful of other viewpoints, no shouting, no whining, no batshit demands. When asked about an independence referendum he replies
First, there has to be a broad consensus in the Basque Country on this new status of self-government and it has to be subsequently agreed upon in the Cortes Generales. Therefore, there must be an agreement not only in the Basque Country but also with the State. And, afterwards, there has to be a referendum. That is our road map.
Note he says, “new status of self-government”, so he recognizes that the Basques already have a form of it, something EH Bildu would never accept as it regards the current political dispensation as an imposition of the Spanish “oppressor”. Note also “consensus” i.e. the holding of a referendum would only occur if it was supported by those who would vote “no” to independence in one. Note further that the agreement of the government of Spain would be required. Finally, note the light years of distance between this approach to politics and that of the various Catalan nationalist parties and consider which has produced the best results for their respective peoples.
The PSE’s candidate is Eneko Andueza and he’s been clear that ETA was indeed a terrorist organisation and that he’s going to do all in his power to keep EH Bildu out of regional power. As he required 24-hour armed protection to keep him safe from EH Bildu’s friends and comrades for nine (!) years of his youth when he was a councillor and PSE activist in his home town I think we can take him at his word on that. Unusually for someone on the left today he’s very much into bullfighting and has even written a book on the relationship between it and his side of politics in Spain.
I won’t waste time on the candidates of Podemos and Sumar as the polls suggest they’ll be lucky to win a single seat. The PP’s guy, well you have to love him, he’s putting in hard work for his party in difficult terrain and he may be rewarded with a modest increase in its vote. Some polls suggest it might get a seat or two more than its present six
And what of Vox? The out-and-proud Francoists look unlikely to win a seat.
We’ll see how all this turns out on Sunday night but it’s difficult to think of a result that would be seriously negative for the national government. It enjoys the support of both the PNV and EH Bildu in Madrid. For the Sánchez administration, the key electoral battle will be fought in Cataluña on May 12th.
Speaking of Sánchez, he’s been making great play of his support for a Palestinian state lately, jetting here and there to consult with other European leaders on this matter. That’s not because he’s an Iberian Jeremy Corbyn, he showed no interest in matters Middle Eastern before the present crisis. It’s because the Palestinian cause is very popular in Spain, it always has been and not just on the left. Yasser Arafat was received in Madrid by Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez in 1979. Diplomatic relations between Madrid and Jerusalem weren’t established until 1986.
The other reason is that the upcoming Basque, Catalan, and European Parliament elections and the wait till the amnesty bill emerges from the Senate to be finally passed into law by the Chamber of Deputies have becalmed the government. No big domestic initiatives will be possible till late June at the very earliest and probably not till the autumn.
So Sánchez has plenty of time to gallivant around Europe with a (metaphorical) keffiyeh over his shoulders. It keeps his public profile up on an issue on which there’s broad public consensus. And he loves foreign affairs in general anyway, so it’s all good.