José Antonio Ardanza, the lehendakari of the pacts, the leader of the Basque Government who in the 80s inaugurated the transversal agreements between the PNV and the PSE, and the one who promoted the Ajuria Enea pact to politically isolate those who legitimized violence, has died at 82 years old. Ardanza was the lehendakari who held the position for the longest time, leading the Government of Euskadi for 14 years, between 1985 and 1999.
José Antonio Ardanza was appointed lehendakari after the resignation of Carlos Garaikoetxea, at the thread of the crisis in the PNV that ended with the split of Eusko Alkartasuna.
José Antonio Ardanza was appointed Lehendakari after the resignation of Carlos Garaikoetxea, following the crisis in the PNV that ended with the split of Eusko Alkartasuna. The fight against ETA’s violence, his work to politically isolate the nationalist left while legitimizing violence, confronting the industrial crisis that devastated Euskadi during the first years of his mandate and promoting the economic relaunch of the territory were the main tasks. that marked his long period at the head of the Basque Executive.
Ardanza represented a moderate and pactist Basque nationalism, which drank from the Christian Democratic heritage that José Antonio Agirre and Manuel de Irujo had sown since the 1930s.
He came to office hastily, as a result of the crisis that had emerged at the head of the PNV between Carlos Garaikoetxea, lehendakari between 1980 and 1985, and Xabier Arzalluz, president of the party. In his biography he reflects the impact it had on him and his family that the Jeltzales thought of him to lead the Basque Government. “In my family I was first god and then the lehendakari,” he points out.
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