The campaign for the elections to the Basque Parliament on Sunday has been interrupted this afternoon by an unfortunate event. The PNV candidate for lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, has been attacked with pepper spray in Barakaldo, when he was leaving a rally of his party to go to the ETB headquarters in Bilbao, where he was to participate in a debate with the rest of the candidates to lead the Basque government. The perpetrator of the attack was arrested shortly afterwards and the debate can finally be held.
The sequence of events has been as follows. Imanol Pradales participated, along with Andoni Ortuzar, president of his party, and the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, in an event in Barakaldo that began after 7:00 p.m. After a comedy show that opened the rally, Pradales was the first to speak and spoke for about 15 minutes. At around 7:30 p.m., he left the event in order to give a final review of the debate topics and, finally, go to the ETB headquarters.
Andoni Ortuzar was alerted to what happened while Urkullu was speaking and, as soon as he went on stage, he explained to those gathered what happened. Pradales had been attacked with pepper spray and taken to the nearby Cruces hospital. “We don’t know what it’s responding to, but in any case, I think that this type of behavior, this type of events, has to lead us as a society to reflect on whether all of this that we are experiencing, of stretching, of tension, of creating division , to create tension, is the way for a society like the Basque one. Of course, in the opinion of the PNV, no, that is not our path,” he stated.
Pradales was treated between 7:45 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. in the emergency room of the Cruces hospital, until he left the center to go to the ETB debate. The rest of the candidates, who had been summoned, were waiting for him at the headquarters of the Basque public radio and television station, in a staggered manner starting at 8:00 p.m.
