The Basque pre-campaign, which since last week already has a specific date for the elections – April 21 -, experienced its first viral controversy this Monday. The controversy, however, has not been hatched in Euskadi, but has come from Madrid, first through the New Generations account in X and later through Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid. The reason, a pre-campaign poster from EH Bildu.
In the emblem in question you can see Pello Otxandiano, candidate for lehendakari of EH Bildu, next to the motto Erabaki aldaketa (decide change), also accompanied by a motto in Spanish that reads Focus on the future.
Both the Nuevas Generaciones account and the Ayuso networks have wanted to insinuate that the choice of the word in question is not a coincidence, but rather that it would seek to send a subliminal message of support for ETA. In fact, in both publications they have accompanied the photo poster with the anagram of the terrorist group, in order to establish a parallel.
From these accounts, not in vain, they have also seen the typography used by EH Bildu for the poster as suspicious, particularly regarding the -e of the word aldaketa.
The popular complaint has gone viral, especially Ayuso’s message, and has caused quite a few jokes, which included the word -eta in other words such as Getafe or peseta.
The socialist Oscar Puente, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, has also responded to Ayuso: “Erabaki Aldaketa (decide the change) is a slogan that is nothing new, but recurring in politics. “It is not very bold but enough to take it to the Supreme Court… The connection with ETA confirms Ayuso’s lack of confidence in the intelligence of the citizen to whom he directs his messages.”
Also a victim of ETA such as María Jauregi, daughter of the socialist Juan Mari Jauregi, murdered in 2000, has censored the popular campaign. It is not the first time that victims of terrorism accuse Ayuso of frivolizing regarding ETA, a criticism that Consuelo Ordóñez, sister of Gregorio Ordóñez, has repeated on more than one occasion.
The truth is that the suffix -keta is extraordinarily common in Basque. It is used above all to indicate the action resulting from certain verbs: aldatu (change), aldaketa (change); from arnastu (breathing), arnasketa (breathing). The endings in -eta, in addition, are very common because it is a suffix used to indicate abundance or profusion of something, with the particularity that it has a special reflection in surnames and toponymy: de mendi (mountain), Mendieta (place of mountains); of art (holm oak), Arteta (holm oak), etc. Finally, ‘eta’ is also the copulative conjunction ‘and’, so finding these three letters together in Basque is very common.
In any case, the interpretation of Nuevas Generaciones and President Ayuso went further, since they understood that the -e of the word aldaketa subliminally introduced the snake of the ETA anagram so that the ending could be read.
EH Bildu, however, has been using this font since December and that same letter, the lowercase -e, has been used to form all types of words.
