The PNV will manage its relationship with the PP with ambivalence and lead feet in the coming weeks. The jeltzales do not want to slam the possibility of future support for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. It is very difficult for the numbers to come up without Vox in the equation, but leaving that option ajar allows them to revalue their representation in Madrid and gives them a significant share of prominence. The PNV also needs the approval of the PP in some important squares of Basque politics in order, through its global pact with the PSE, to block the way for EH Bildu. This ambivalent position with respect to the popular, however, entails a very sensitive risk before a part of his electorate and at a compromised moment, after his first electoral setback in a long time and on the eve of elections that will not be easy.
The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, has indicated this week that the pact that they have just reissued with the Socialists is compatible with an eventual understanding with the PP in Congress. “We have lived in pacts with the PSE supporting the government of President Rajoy,” he said. Immediately afterwards, he qualified that “the biggest drawback” regarding the popular leader “is called Vox” and, also, “the trip to the hard right that Feijóo is making, probably as a pre-electoral or electoral tool.”
In other words, the PNV sets two conditions that should be met for hypothetical support for Feijóo: a more focused PP and leaving Vox out of governance. It does not close the door on the popular leader and sees it as compatible with the understanding with the PSE. Ortuzar’s words respond to a tactical position that the PNV has historically maintained. A classic that, this time too, can place you in a central position.
The Basque nationalists want to sell the support of their representatives in Madrid dearly. One of the great problems of the PNV this legislature has been that the Government of Pedro Sánchez has taken its unconditional support for granted. A good part of the 12-point agreement by which they supported the investiture of the socialist leader has remained on paper, and the PNV has tired of demanding compliance with that pact, as well as a role of preferred partner that it has not always achieved.
Leaving Feijóo’s path ajar allows them to place themselves in a position of negotiating force and locate themselves in the place where they have traditionally felt comfortable: in a central position on the board and maintaining a dialogue with each other. The PNV will also need the support or, at least, the acquiescence of the PP so that the PNV-PSE pact can block the way for EH Bildu in Gipuzkoa, Vitoria or Durango. In the future, they will have to be understood in order to guarantee governability in those squares.
This position can cause many problems for the jeltzales in Euskadi. The PNV comes from having lost 86,000 votes in the last municipal elections, coinciding with a moment of effervescence of EH Bildu. They are aware that they have suffered an abstention from punishment and arrive touched at the general elections. It is not just that the vast majority of their voters, like the party itself, prefer the PSOE as an ally; a part of his social base abhors the option of a rapprochement with the PP. Hence, during the next few weeks the PNV will be seen in a complex game of balances.
Another thing is that this option, a Feijóo government without Vox and with the PNV among its supports, has real options. The popular ones would need an exceptional result, which at the moment no survey points to. If it were given, the PNV would explore the agreement.
