Joseba Asiron (Pamplona, ??1962) regains the mandate of the City Council of the capital of Navarra for EH Bildu after unseating the current mayor Cristina Ibarrola (UPN) in the first motion of censure in the history of the city. The new councilor repeats the position that he already held between 2015 and 2019.
With a degree in Art History from the University of Zaragoza and a doctorate from the University of Navarra, Asiron has been a professor of art and history at the Ikastola San Fermín, in the town of Cizur Menor, since 1991.
A columnist in the press and author of several books alone or in collaboration, the latest “Illustrated History of Euskal Herria” and “Goodbye, Pamplona”, Asiron stood out in 2012 for thirty conferences in a single year and books such as “The Broken Dream” about the conquest of Navarre by Castile five hundred years ago.
Married and father of two children, the mayor of Pamplona came to office in 2015 as an “independent”, since he was not active in any of the parties that make up EH Bildu. A four-party investiture pact with Geroa Bai, Aranzadi and Izquierda-Ezkerra granted him the municipal baton in the constitution of the City Council by 14 votes, compared to 10 for Enrique Maya, for UPN, who was seeking re-election. He thus became the first mayor of the nationalist left in the capital of Navarra.
Thus, Asiron then vindicated his leap into politics by stating that “those of us who were born in the 60s and 70s have never stopped being in politics in some way” and highlighted his commitment to his hometown; “I feel Pamplona’s problems as my own.”
A fan of traveling, the countryside and reading, in 1998, in response to the murder by ETA of the Pamplona councilor Tomás Caballero, Asiron participated in a manifesto signed by 133 other personalities condemning terrorism in which they stood out; “We, Navarrese Basque speakers on the threshold of the 21st century, in the face of the criminal attack committed in Pamplona, ??want to express our firmest and total condemnation of the unjustifiable murder of Tomás Caballero.”
Likewise, after his election as mayor in 2015, he assured that he intended to make an effort with “all the victims” by establishing “a Permanent Commission for Peace and Coexistence” to honor “their right to memory, justice and reparation” and committed to “respect for all human rights”.