To break the backbone of bipartisanship, we only got it where it was already broken. Bittersweet of an achievement: the fact that Spanish nationalism has only achieved it in peripheral territories where it disguises more people. And that is that the bipartisanship (and vice versa) that has fed Spanish nationalism has been weaker, but has remained upright. This test, the new political being, born in the M15 of 2011 and crumbling in the A20 of 2015, is yet to be overcome.

We must take into account, of interest and thanks, what Gorka Bereziartua says in the issue of this magazine of 15/05/2016 on the achievement of this new political being as far as CAPV is concerned (Bereziartua refers to the Basque Country, but the analysis has been presented only to me from the CAPV). What I want to explain, in a very concise way, by drawing on another thread, in the reflection on this phenomenon, in addition to that of Gorka, that is, the challenge facing nationalisms other than Spanish nationalism.

Since the official disappearance of Franco, it is a phenomenon known in the electoral results: the different results of the “peripheral” nations, the type of elections; more or less, a trend has been observed in all the electoral calls: the forces of state obedience obtain more votes in the general elections than in the autonomous ones, where they are not always the most voted. This also means that in Hego Euskal Herria (especially in Navarra) there is a mass for which issues of autonomy are a Spanish issue. That is, a mass that calmly believes that governability at the state level is something that corresponds to political forces at the state level, although it recognizes that domestic management is the responsibility of domestic political forces (national or autonomic). Very rare: the regional elections as if they were local accounts, at the level of elections
municipales.Esta mentality has fueled bipartisanship at the state level also from our areas, has contributed to the “natural” bipartisanship fed by Spanish nationalism. And it is very difficult for this bipartisanship to break the backbone at the state level until the hammer is the PSOE, and especially if the forces of the “peripheral” areas do not appear muscular, with “sorpases”.

If bipartisanship is more conservative (until now) or more open, how not to give the “peripheral” forces a blank cheque to those in the Spanish sphere is the lesson that we have not yet overcome. What has made it clear to us is that the A20 of 2015 was undermined by the achievements of this new political being in our country and by its defeat in Spain.