Everyone’s a winner; the Basque Country General Election Results

Well, not quite everyone.

1.

Before we start and if you haven’t already, you’d better read my explainer here.

2.

Here are the numbers

The main takeaway is that the PNV hung on as the biggest party though it tied in seats with EH Bildu. It’ll be able to form a new government in coalition with the PSE-EE. 

There’s a lovely phrase in Spanish for when you almost but not quite achieve an important goal, “quedarse con la miel en los labios” which means to end up with the honey on one’s lips, i.e. not in one’s mouth. That’s what happened to EH Bildu, a great election result which bodes well for the future but which didn’t knock the PNV off its perch or threaten the renewal of its coalition with the PSE-EE.  A lot of media comment this morning suggests that EH Bildu hegemony is now inevitable in the Basque Country and that the PNV is  in terminal decline. I don’t buy that. EH Bildu has now hoovered up almost all the available left vote, if it wants to grow further it’ll have to compete with the PNV and PSE-EE in the centre of the political ring where the whiff of cordite puts voters off rather than attracting them. Maybe EH Bildu will become the Basque Fianna Fáil to the PNV’s Fine Gael.

Podemos got almost 30% of the vote in the Basque Country in the 2016 national general election.  Yesterday it lost all six of its seats in the Basque Parliament and gathered a shade more than 2% of the vote. The monstrous egotism of Pablo Iglesias and Irene Montero must be one of the reasons, as well as the failure to build a resilient local party structure, and embracing Basque nationalism without being truly part of it. The party’s collapse here and across Spain hasn’t led to a hint of self-criticism or signs of a change of course. Pablo and Irene are convinced that the people have voted wrongly again.

Sumar, the left coalition which governs Spain in coalition with the PSOE, scraped a single seat. A very poor showing and further proof that new, Madrid-based political projects struggle to attract and keep votes in the regions no matter how much they talk of Spain being plurinational.

The PSE-EE’s firm stand against EH Bildu’s caviling on terrorism may have been one of the factors that boosted its vote and won it two extra seats. And it had an energetic and convincing candidate in Eneko Anduesa too. 

Campaigning on local issues for the most part, the PP won an extra seat and limited Vox to one. The result will be a boost for the party’s national leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, a blow to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Baroness of Spanish nationalist Spain and Queen of the Madrid Autonomous Community.

Vox’s failure to grow in the home region of its leader Santiago Abascal ought to give pause for thought among the vendors of the “The far-right’s unstoppable rise in Europe” discourse but probably won’t. There are very few votes for reaction in the Basque Country, still less for reaction with a strong Francoist flavour.

Surely you’re missing the point. The two big Basque nationalist parties now have 54 seats between them,  a drive for independence must now be inevitable.

No. The PNV and EH Bildu despise each other, the former sees independence as a very long-term goal while only 57% of supporters of the latter actually support secession. As we have learned over the years in Catalonia, a lot fewer people want independence than those who enjoy wanting it without any intention of doing anything to achieve it.

Overall, this is a great result for Pedro Sánchez; the PSOE’s Basque expression polled strongly and will remain in government, EH Bildu’s long march towards full participation in democracy continues while the PNV remains top dog in its own territory, if only just. Both are key government partners in Madrid and the election has given neither an incentive to make trouble for it. 

And now on to Catalonia on May 12

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