There were not many of us who announced the victory of Podemos in Hego Euskal Herria. There was no more than looking beyond the surveys, the historical series of electoral behaviour and the evolution of the campaign. If the Pablo Iglesias party had not won in the South, it would have been a surprise. The same applies to the fall of EH Bildu, whose best results with Amaiur in the Spanish elections in 2011, four years later has lost more than a third (116,000) of that result.

Most voters who have lost EH Bildu have gone to abstention and Podemos, respectively. Among those who have made the decision not to vote, those who identify with the identities and historical claims of ENAM have predominated. Dissatisfied with the line of moderation that has taken sortu, they have taken advantage of the Spanish elections to stay at home.

However, the biggest loss of EH Bildu voters has occurred in favor of Podemos. I would distinguish three groups between those who have jumped from Amaiur to the purple party. The first is a part of the voter that has been defined as a fifth space in Basque politics, the Left and in favour of the right to decide. This sector was orphaned in 2011 by the collapse of Ezker Batua, so there were not many who supported Amaiur. It looked like a new, fresh, plural coalition. Four years later, however, EH Bildu sees itself as a more homogeneous political sector. If in 2011 there was hope and hope for change in EH Bildu, in 2015 he moved to Madrid with a match that represents the natural position of the fifth space, Podemos.

The second group is the tactical vote, the Senate and the Senate. On 20 December last, some of the voters who came from EH Bildu thought that the presence of Podemos in power could help improve the situation of political prisoners and advance political normalization. The third team has some similarities, but it's not just about pragmatism, it's an ideologized voter. Nobody escapes that EH Bildu has symbolically moderated its left-right axis position. Faced with this, some left-wing voters have given their vote to Podemos as a way of defending their ideological priorities.

Many opinion makers have argued that Podemos does not have a more left-wing position than EH Bildu, as if the left-wing and right-wing image were only fixed by public policies and programmes. Much of society does not follow municipal policies, let alone political programmes. To set the left-right axis position, it is important what an aspect wants to replace. Left-wing policies are not enough to have a left image, but to have a left image it is necessary to replace the left positions, especially in the three dimensions: a) in symbology (red, posters, choruses, etc. ); (b) in the speech priorities (to whom and to whom the problems relate, what are the key words (minor class, people, distribution of wealth, social transformation…), etc. as well as in policy beliefs (c).

We can have worked during the election campaign (and before) a much more left-wing image than EH Bildu. The purple party has it easier because it competes almost on one axis, while EH Bildu has to act beyond the social axis in the national. However, it has not so far been able to combine the two together well, perhaps because it has long relegated its independence message and buried the image of the Left with post-materialism and post-modernism.