“I ask the public to vote on day 20 (…) with abstention does not improve democracy. Your vote is important both for your future and for your family, as well as for your values and principles.” These are the words used by the socialist candidate Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in the debate he held last week with the popular Mariano Rajoy. It is astonishing: while the candidate underlined the value of the vote, in Greece Papandréu said that in the end he would not make a referendum, adding to European pressure.

This will be one of the main problems politicians will have in the Spanish elections: How do we convince ourselves that we live in a democratic system? The Greek case has made the states clear; the sovereignty of votes ends in the banks’ offices and it will be difficult to convince the citizens.

In this context, the campaign has been launched by both, also in Hego Euskal Herria. At stake are 23 seats of the Congress of Spain (8 from Bizkaia, 6 from Gipuzkoa, 5 from Navarra and 4 from Álava) and 16 from the Senate (4 from each country). In the case of the Senate, in addition, the regional parliaments elect one more senator and one more senator for every million inhabitants the community has.

Rivalry between abertzales

In addition to the huge economic crisis, ETA’s decision to abandon arms is being very present in Euskal Herria – in the case of Spain, the two majority parties have, of course, agreed to put this issue aside. The change of strategy and the accumulation of sovereign forces of the Abertzale left have generated strong competition in the Abertzale area that is evidencing throughout the campaign.

The results obtained by Bildu in the municipal and foral elections show that for the first time in history the hegemony of the PNV is waning. The first time? Well, no. “The torch of the Basque cause changed hands in the 1960s: the prominence of the PNV in the history of nationalism passed to ETA almost exclusively”. This is an episode of the legendary book Basque nationalism in exile, written three decades ago by Emilio López Adan Negro. The book explains that while the PNV was in exile and exhausted, ETA brought a respite and stood at the forefront of the fetus. Jeltzales like the Ajuriaguerra harshly welcomed the new Abertzales: “They have left the Party and will return to the Party on their knees,” they said. It's a paradox. When ETA was born, the PNV saw the risk of losing hegemony in nationalism; half a century later, when ETA is over, the same thing has happened to it.

But as Joseba Egibar recently explained, the PNV is a “phondist” party. Its history demonstrates this, because it has been able to adapt and adapt to the new contexts. After the creation of ETA, the 1986 EA split could be one of the hardest times of the Jeltzales, but each year’s election results still see how it overcame that barrier until Ibarretxe’s golden years.

In this campaign the PNV insists on this past of the Abertzale training, emphasizing the words “experience” and “stability”; of the work carried out in the Madrid Congress, candidate Joseba Agirretxea said in the Basque Country Irratia that they have “35 years of guarantee and a curriculum acceptable to any company”. In the electoral programme, the PNV has placed in capital letters that the last legislature obtained EUR 1.265 million in transfers, aids and investments from Madrid. The resume, however, is a double-edged blade, as voters can recall the Zapatero Government’s support for reforms and cuts.

In any case, the PNV has a firm electoral soil: In 1996, 318,000 votes; in 2000, 353,000; in 2004, 420,000 votes; and in 2008, 306,000 votes (excluding NaBai). It does not seem that in the short term the Amaiur coalition is going to take him away much, especially as in the last call the success of Bildu did not harm him in number of votes (327,000 votes achieved by the PNV in the CAV). But in the medium term? There things are in another way, the parties that make up Amaiur can erode the PNV as they go deeper into the right to decide.

The Urkullu party is aware that it cannot stand in this area, and in that context a new political status has been raised for 2015. But what is this about? Although not much has been clarified yet, it seems that the PNV proposal can come from a “concerted” political model and from being recognised as a nation in Europe (see Larrun No. 158). ).

Amaiur, finally free

This election campaign is being totally unusual. Not only because there is no armed ETA activity, but also because the Abertzale left, for once, can campaign freely. Over the past ten years, the State Prosecutor’s Office has contested more than half a dozen acronyms and has been subjected to police persecution during the campaign. The sovereign coalition itself has not yet been able to know whether or not it is going to take part in the elections in May this year. In the case of Amaiur, the sovereign forces are issuing rallies normally, pasting posters, asking for a vow by letter, they have room in the radios and televisions... The Abertzale left has been accused on numerous occasions of using the sword of Damocles that justice has placed upon him for the victimization. In this respect, the elections will be the proof of the cotton given to the citizens.

All the surveys show that Amaiur is on the way to achieving a parliamentary group with representation in the Basque Country. In the municipal and foreign elections, Bildu won 313,000 votes and Aralar 37,000. To that must be added those that Aralar achieved in Navarre under the symbol of NaBai. We are talking about a total of 350,000 votes. If Amaiur succeeds in being the most voted party of Hego Euskal Herria, the People’s Party, which is already virtually in the Spanish Government, would have more difficulty in showing its closure and ending the peace process.

The result, the challenges of the sovereign coalition are also present. Being a multilateral sum, it will have to maintain the balance between cohesion and diversity. The forces that make up Bildu have come a long way together and have signed strategic agreements. Aralar, for its part, has only made a coalition for these elections after intense internal debate. In this regard, it remains to be seen how the attitude of each other will affect Amaiur’s future. In an act of the Abertzale left held in Pamplona, Rufi Etxeberria said that it will be "the engine of the national democratic revolution". The key is that the bearings that carry that train and that engine are well-articulated and the direction and rhythm is agreed between all of them.

Patxi Lopez, where were you?

Outside the realm of nationalism, there is a curiosity about the results that the Socialist Party can have. Patxi López, who is lehendakari of the Basque Government taken from a parliament in which not all the options are represented, was invested with the support of pp, which is the party that is always picoteing in Spain. And to put it another way, your party in Madrid is responsible for numerous anti-social reforms because of the economic crisis in the country. How do you turn all of this around?

It is noteworthy that while in Spain a pact of silence has been made with pp, in the Basque Country the socialists dance about the end of ETA. “We have met the main goals: to bring peace and freedom,” Lopez said at a campaign rally. But lehendakari has a problem. When ETA left the guns he was on a train from the United States. After this mistake, he has tried to take the lead and has held meetings with representatives of different parties and sectors, being the President of the Government, Rodríguez Zapatero, the last one who visited Ajuria-Enea. How is this going to affect the forthcoming elections? The PSE achieved some 425,000 votes in the CAV in 2008, how many in 2011? As Tapia and Leturia said: they wouldn't be few if I had half.