The President of the Government and leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, visited Euskadi on the second day of the electoral campaign to support the socialist candidate for Lehendakari, Eneko Andueza. At an event in Vitoria-Gasteiz, he claimed the “decisive” role that the Socialists will have, as the third force according to all polls, in deciding the “policy orientation” of the next Basque Government. The leader of the Executive, however, has dedicated most of his speech to attacking “the tension” generated by “the right and the extreme right.” “They trivialize the Franco dictatorship,” he has denounced, in line with the decisions of the autonomous governments of PP and Vox regarding historical memory.
Supported by around 1,500 people, Pedro Sánchez has criticized that all these initiatives carried out by the autonomous governments of the PP and Vox “are not about harmony, but about discord.”
“We feel outraged, but unfortunately we are not surprised, because this is what we warned after the municipal and regional elections in May and after the general elections in July,” he stressed.
In this sense, he added that in Spain there is a “right and an extreme right that cannot be distinguished”, that “it is not known where one begins and where the other ends”, and they form “reactionary” governments that seek to rewrite history and equate the democracy with dictatorship”. “They only know how to trip and muddy the field,” he said.
The President of the Government has also dedicated a good part of his speech to defending the economic management of his Executive. “We are growing more than the EU average, today we have 21 million members of Social Security, 10 million women working and contributing to Social Security. And we have the interprofessional minimum wage at more than 1,130 euros, and retirees know that they do not lose purchasing power,” he defended.
Focused exclusively on the Basque elections on April 21, Pedro Sánchez has appealed to the role of arbiter of Basque politics that the PSE will probably play.
All surveys place the Basque socialists in third position, with between 10 and 12 seats – compared to the 28-29 that PNV and EH Bildu would have – and with the key to governability in their hand. Although the growing bipartisan perception of Basque politics may harm them by polarizing the struggle between the two great nationalist forces, the PSE has sought to make a virtue of this possible harm and has opted to focus on the leading role that it will have, according to everything it indicates, since post-election Monday. “Vote for the one who decides” is the campaign slogan of the socialists.
“We ask citizens to vote for who will decide what will be the orientation and policies that will be implemented in Euskadi for the next four years. The acronyms that decide on April 21 are the acronyms of the socialist party,” he noted.
The PSE has lost strength in elections to the Basque Parliament since its best historical results, between 2005 and 2009; However, the Basque socialists maintain a good part of their electoral muscle in general elections. In July they were the most voted force in Euskadi, surpassing both the PNV and EH Bildu by almost 15,000 votes. For this reason, Sánchez has appealed to the 291,000 votes that the socialists received in the Basque Country in the July elections, emphasizing that they were key for the socialists to continue in the Government.
The socialist candidate for lehendakari, Eneko Andueza, has insisted precisely on this decisive role that the socialists could play.
“They have been insisting for some time on saying that these elections are actually a match between two, between nationalists and more nationalists, between PNV and Bildu when it is not true. The truth is that they can’t take their eyes off us, because they know very well that we Basque socialists are going to paint long after April 21. They know very well that the ones who are really going to decide the new Basque Government are the socialists,” he pointed out.
Andueza has also insisted that they will not govern with Bildu. “President, are you or me saying it again? “We are not going to govern with Bildu!” he indicated.
