argia.eus
INPRIMATU
In Navarre there are many possibilities to repeat the current situation in the government.
  • It cannot be advertised, but everything points out that the results of the main blocs in the Navarre Parliament will be similar on 28 May and, therefore, with a view to the government, a similar situation can be repeated. Another thing is the appearance of the City of Pamplona, where the results can open several doors.
Xabier Letona Biteri @xletona 2023ko maiatzaren 09a
María Chivite lehendakaria ezkerrean, eta haren eskuinean Elma Saiz, Iruñeko Udalerako PNSren alkategaia, eta EH Bilduko parlamentari Bakartxo Ruiz eta Adolfo Araiz aurrekontuen negoziazioan. (Argazkia: Idoia Zabaleta / FOKU)

In this last legislature, EH Bildu has for the first time supported an SNP government. Maria Chivite, President, PSN, Geroa Bai and Ahal Duguk have formed the Government of Navarra with 8, 4 and a counsellor respectively. The only Left-Ezkerra representative supported the government in the investiture, but did not enter it.

Although the government has had the support of the 22 parliamentarians of its parties – since 50 – it has had to count on the support of the 7 seats of EH Bildu, both for the investiture and to carry out the government’s budgets. It seems that this can also be the case in the next term. What they left out of Parliament at the time of ETA has become the key to governance. Chivit has made it clear: if the results give would like a government like the current one, and EH Bildu has also considered it to be the right formula, because for him it continues to marginalize and erode UPN.

According to most polls, UPN will win in the Parliament of Navarre with 12-15 parliamentarians, but the right will not get enough vote to rule alone. The PSN seems to be the second 10-11 and there would be a lot of competition between Geroa Bai (9) and EH Bildu (8). The PP is not clear, because it would get 3-6 seats. The Nafarroa With You coalition (Ahal Dugu, Ezker Batua, Batzarre and the Greens) would amount to a 3 and Vox would enter the parliament with 1-2 seats.

Javier Esparza (UPN), María Chivite (PSN), Uxue Barkos (Geroa Bai), Laura Aznal (EH Bildu), Javier García (PP), Begoña Alfaro (With You Navarra) and Maite Nosti (Vox) are presented to the Presidency of the Government of Navarra. Above all, two of them have the possibility of being presidents, Javier Esparza and María Chivit, although one cannot ignore Uxue Barkos, who was president in the last legislature. In the surveys there is usually everything, but in most of the surveys carried out so far it is not predicted that much falls in the main blocks and their internal balances.

In fact, the elections to the Parliament of Navarre will be won loosely by UPN, as it has done in most of the last four decades, but you can get one of its worst results in history, as Navarre Suma, who picked up the right of Navarre in the last legislature, has now thrown in the trash: “We will get more votes than grouped,” Esparza said.

The decision of UPN had put the quilies on the right that the strong Adanero-Sayas wind blown hard. Esparza spent the entire legislature saying that the PSN is in the hands of EH Bildu, and there, on the eve of elections, he himself had to swallow the same sweet from the mouth of Elias Bendodo, PP coordinator: “not only from the PSOE, but from UPN EH Bildu”. The knives dance fast, but no one doubts that the day after the elections they will soon reach consensus if they get 25 parliamentarians. But to their detriment, none of the polls offers this possibility, not even with the possible 1-2 seats of Vox. In recent years this fusing game between UPN and PP is common, and in the end, in 2011, the PP acquired 4 seats with Javier Cervera, which was swallowed by a black hole. UPN-PP has always been imposed in Navarre in a tender way, but this time the gap has increased greatly within the party. We will see if the same thing happens in its sociological sphere.

Volkswagen and others

If the pandemic has been the primary feature of the legislature that we say goodbye, climate change and its impact on economic development will become ever stronger for the future. There is much evidence that there is great potential for economic and social deterioration, and more and more voices are saying that development can no longer be raised in the key to growth. But the truth is that in the institutional sphere few are the ones that hit the flag of deceleration. The Government of Navarre, like most others, has so far fled from looking face-to-face to face with this plight that is led by traditional developmentalist policies.

Automotive and, in particular, Volkswagen are beginning to suffer the consequences of mocking, and seeing the fall in car sales, it seems difficult to say that the future will be as prosperous as the past. The new government coming out will have to address, among other things, this thorny issue. Chivit has benefited from the Next Generation funds to stimulate the economy, but this is one part of the currency of the European Union, the other is the austerity that we knew well in the last decade, which the EU too is going to make worse sooner rather than later.

City Hall of Pamplona: Mayor of Ibarrola or Asirón, in charge of the PSN

Joseba Asiron led the small revolution that EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and Aranzadi brought to the City Hall of Pamplona. Enrique Maya (Navarra Suma) stayed from an absolute majority to a seat in May 2019 (13 councillors). But actually Maya’s alternative was frustrated by the PSN, with Maite Sporrin’s famous “Assorted goodbye”.

The majority trend in the surveys is UPN (9-10), EH Bildu (7-8), PSN (4-5), Geroa Bai (2-3), Nafarroa With You (1-2) and PP (1-2). The SNP will once again hold the key to governance and has already announced that the Socialists will vote for themselves. In this situation, Joseba Asiron would be virtually impossible to repeat again.

Yes, it happened in 2015, but in full force of Ahal Duguren and his orbit, Aranzadi obtained 3 councilors and Ezker Batua 1. Can this be repeated even with another distribution of councillors? It's not easily represented. Although we agree, that left space doesn't come with the bellows then. Geroa Bai 5 and EH Bildu got another 5 in 2015, but in 2019 this result became 5-7 in favor of the leftist coalition. The Asiron wave hit hard and led Geroa Bai from 5 to 3. Koldo Martínez does not seem to revolutionize this situation.

And then there's the results on the right: in 2010, it reached the worst in history, which also facilitated the municipal government without PSN. But in all the others, the Spanish right (UPN-PP-CDN...) has always been between 11 and 16 councillors in the City of Pamplona, with an average of 13 councillors since 1979. That is, statistically, almost always from the absolute majority to one vote.

However, the policy is changing and the PSN has also made moves in the City Hall of Pamplona, eliminating Maite Sporrin and transferring Elma Saiz to the mayor. At the moment it seems difficult to see PSN EH Bildu relying on the mayor's office, among other things because he knows that EH Bildu will give him the government so that UPN will not do so, and especially because only the Sarasate Walk sends him to the PSN. The right is very strong in Navarre, you cannot deny, but PSN has ruled because he wants.

It was facilitated by the era of ETA, which could hardly be imagined by killing the PSOE councillors and governing with HB or Batasuna the PSE or PSN councillors. But the situation has changed and the doors of politics are often closed. In this same journal, the independent mayor of the Aranguren Valley, Manolo Romero, proposes that UPN be withdrawn: that the PSN be one year in the mayor's office and three in EH Bildu, as long as it remains before Asiro, of course. In the absence of agreement, the new mayor of Pamplona will be Cristina Ibarrola of UPN.