The investiture of the socialist María Chivite is being cooked very slowly in Navarre. Four weeks after the elections, the acting president still has all the options to be re-elected, but the elections of July 23 condition the way to the Palau de Navarra. There are two fronts on his negotiating agenda. He must negotiate, first of all, with his partners: the Basque coalition Geroa Bai and Contigo/Zurekin, which unites Podemos, IU and Batzarre. Secondly, it will require the abstention of EH Bildu, which in principle will seek to make them choose between voting for a progressive government without counterparts or an eventual electoral repeat.
The chances of Chivite’s investiture being successful are based, above all, on the successful precedent of the last legislature and on the realization that the other options are unviable. The three forces to his right, UPN, PP and Vox, are far from a majority (they have 20 out of 50 seats), and a progressive government is also not possible without the PSN, recovering the formula that Uxue Barkos led in 2015 ( Geroa Bai, Bildu and Contigo/Zurekin add up to 19 parliamentarians). An understanding between the Socialists and the UPN (they would add 26), returning to a formula that bled the PSN in the past, seems impossible today, so Chivite has some control over the situation and, in fact, it is very likely that the infeasibility of these alternatives would remain in case the elections were repeated.
At the moment, the first negotiating front is progressing at a tedious pace. The only significant progress has been the agreement that has allowed the re-election of Unai Hualde (Geroa Bai) as President of the Parliament. The PSN, Geroa Bai and Contigo/Zurekin still have to negotiate on the government program and the distribution of ministries. Geroa Bai has already made public his disagreements with the way the PSN is conducting the negotiation.
As for the second front, the Socialists insist that they will not negotiate with Bildu in exchange for their abstention. At the moment, the PSN has made it possible with its blank vote that the mayoralty of Pamplona is for UPN, instead of the Abertzale coalition, second in the city. The anger is evident in the Abertzale coalition; however, it is unlikely that they will choose to unseat Chivite. The law that governs Navarre’s self-government establishes that if within three months of the elections “no candidate was presented or none of those presented had been elected” elections would be called.
Is an eventual understanding with Bildu an insurmountable obstacle? It does not seem so, as long as it is limited to an understanding on social issues. In May, the PSN revalidated its good results of 2019 after having agreed with the Abertzale coalition on issues of an eminently social nature. The problem is south of the Ebro, especially for these 23-J elections. The use that a PP with many open fronts with respect to Vox could make of any dialogue with Bildu, even if it was to close an abstention, paralyzes the socialists . Chivite’s future will be decided in August.
