The general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, confirmed this afternoon that he will not be the candidate for lehendakari of the coalition in the elections to the Basque Parliament next spring, although he will run for re-election to continue in his current responsibility. The nationalist party will therefore opt for bicephaly, as La Vanguardia pointed out this weekend, and will propose a candidate to its membership in the coming days. The Basque parliamentarians Nerea Kortajarena and Oihana Etxebarrieta are the best positioned, but other alternatives are not ruled out.
Otegi himself announced this decision this afternoon in Donostia/San Sebastián. Previously, he has communicated to the political table of the coalition his approach regarding next spring’s elections and his hypothetical participation as a candidate. The nationalist leader has informed them that he understands that the formation has other electoral options and has also indicated that he considers that his political figure will be more useful in the general coordination of the coalition.
In this sense, as Otegi himself had pointed out last week, he has proposed moving the coalition Congress forward to September of next year – it was going to be held in 2025 – and there he will present his candidacy to once again be general coordinator.
“I have to apply not to be a candidate for the three territories (in reference to the territories of the Autonomous Community of Euskadi) in an institution, but to be the general coordinator of Euskal Herria Bildu again. I believe that the tasks we are going to have in political and strategic terms, in addition to being exciting, are going to be important in the coming months and years. “We are going to have to talk a lot, dialogue a lot, work a lot and make little noise, think carefully, be prudent, be ambitious and build great agreements between different people that make this country better and freer,” he declared.
In this way, the alternative of bicephaly, forced at the time by the disqualification of Otegi as a result of the Bateragune case, is consolidated in the nationalist coalition and will be prolonged in the event that the current general coordinator is ratified in office.
This option offers several advantages to EH Bildu. Firstly, it allows them to give importance to the different territorial realities, since the nationalist coalition is not only present in Euskadi. It is a factor that Otegi himself has highlighted.
EH Bildu is also a strong party in Navarra, where it is third in the regional Parliament, second in the Pamplona City Council and is also the party with the most councilors in this community. In Iparralde, the French Basque Country, its brand EH Bai was the second force in the 2021 regional and departmental elections, although it usually occupies the third step in the political struggle on the other side of the Bidasoa.
Secondly, a person from the old guard like Otegi in the general coordination offers them greater guarantees in order to guarantee internal cohesion, one of the great battles of the Abertzale leadership in recent years. Expanding the electoral space of EH Bildu, reaching new electoral niches that the historical nationalist left did not reach, implies an obvious risk that Bildu is aware of after the fractures that have occurred in recent years in its youth or in the field of the claim regarding ETA prisoners.
In parallel, along with this maintenance of historical leaders like Otegi, the arrival of new faces to the candidacies is what is allowing EH Bildu to grow beyond the historical ceilings of the nationalist left and come closer to being a sum of its actors (Sortu, Eusko Alkartasuna, Alternatiba, the extinct Aralar…) and not a mere reproduction of what Sortu is, direct heir of the old Batasuna. This commitment is also allowing them to face a gradual generational change, as seen in the municipal and regional elections in May.
Otegi, in any case, has not given any clues as to who may be the head of the nationalist candidacy list. He has indicated that the decision could be made definitively during the first weeks of December.
