Grow in votes and seats by going alone (in 2020 the PP was in coalition with Ciudadanos) and be influential. These were the three objectives that Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s executive set for itself at the beginning of the campaign for the regional elections in the Basque Country and the polls have awarded it seven seats, one more than four years ago, and more than 95,000 votes, the 9.25% of the votes cast.
“We have managed to grow in percentage, in votes and seats,” exclaimed Javier de Andrés in his appearance after knowing the results, in which he spoke of the “recovery” and “repositioning” of the PP and offered the PNV his ” outstretched hand”, but, yes, “within the limits” of the Constitution.
But the third challenge, that of being decisive in decision-making in Parliament and conditioning the government’s action, has been frustrated, because the PNV, despite its fall, and the PSE will be able to regain an absolute majority with 39 seats, one above the 38 necessary in the Basque Parliament, of 75 seats (25 for each territory).
By province, the PP wins four seats in Álava, the territory in which it traditionally obtains better results and whose capital, Vitoria, it governed in the past; two in Bizcaia and one in Gipuzkoa. But Javier de Andrés’s seven deputies are far from the party’s historical mark in Euskadi, which Jaime Mayor Oreja set in 2001 with 19 seats.
The PP, with a candidate without stridency in full harmony with Feijóo, has presented itself to Basque society as the only representative of the “political center”, once the PNV has left it “orphaned”, has been the repeated analysis from Genoa , for its long parliamentary alliance with Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE and its “satellite parties.”
In this sense, there have been continuous appeals to stability, security and management by the PP, which has focused on accusing the PNV of “embracing” not only the socialists, but also groups such as EH Bildu and Podemos. , whose proposals in industrial and housing policy, for example, are diametrically opposed to those that Basque nationalism has applied from the Government of Euskadi.
The PP has claimed to be the alternative and the hope of a Basque Country in which discontent over the deterioration of public services has been increasing and since its first appearance on this election night it has congratulated itself on the “upward trend.” of the party in Euskadi, which has already been demonstrated, its spokesperson, the deputy in the Basque Parliament Laura Garrido, has highlighted, in the municipal elections in May and the general elections in July of last year.
“We are the focused alternative to balance Basque politics,” said the number two of the Basque PP, who stressed that the results “demonstrate that citizens have asked for change and have voted for the moderation that the PP represents.”
However, the PP leadership regrets that in the final stretch of the campaign the controversy over the refusal of the EH Bildu candidate, Pello Otxandiano, to classify ETA as a terrorist group may have benefited the PNV, which has captured the useful vote of the moderate sectors of Basque society.
For the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, the worst thing about the election night has been the good results of EH Bildu, which has been “whitewashed”, in her opinion, by the PSOE. “It is not good news,” said the popular leader about the electoral growth of the nationalist left at the stroke of midnight.
The results of the PSE, which has increased two seats, and of Vox, which maintains the one achieved by Álava four years ago, do not allow that in Genoa, which experienced a triumphant night in the Galician elections last February with the absolute majority of Alfonso Rueda , they have taken the cava out of the refrigerator.
