The PNV has launched a campaign on social networks under the suggestive slogan Here it all begins / Hemen hasiko da dena in which it calls “all its militants” to an appointment: this Saturday at the Landako pavilion in Durango. The objective of the call is none other than to launch, this time, the Basque electoral pre-campaign, after several weeks of impasse, and to make official the replacement of Imanol Pradales, who that same day will be definitively proclaimed candidate for lehendakari by the Assembly National training.
In this way, the Jeltzales will put an end to the internal process for the appointment of Pradales, a procedure that officially began on December 11, although previously, between November 24 and 25, it had already been leaked that Iñigo Urkullu would not be the PNV’s commitment as a candidate and, hours later, it was known who would be his replacement as head of the list.
Pradales’ public interventions have been very limited since then, since the Jeltzales have wanted to respect the times of an internal process in which, in any case, there have been no more candidates and the Biscayan sociologist has obtained the “unanimous” support of militancy. The most important event in which he has participated in recent weeks has been the Global Europe Forum, an event organized in Brussels by Renew Europe, a group in the European Parliament in which the PNV is part.
There, Pradales called for the creation of an Atlantic Macroregion, in the face of a Europe whose central axes move towards the east, called to combat “populism on the right and left” and hoped that Basque would soon be an official language of the European Union. In any case, it was a very brief intervention and the truth is that Pradales’ moment will come on Saturday.
That day, Bakartxo Tekeria, president of this institution since 2012 and, likewise, the only candidate in the internal process, will also be proclaimed as a candidate to preside over the Basque Parliament. In addition, the lists will be validated to the Basque Parliament by Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Álava.
The Jeltzales wanted to coincide the official proclamation of Imanol Pradales as a candidate with a public event, something that is eloquent of the point at which the party is and its needs for the elections next spring.
Although he has held the Economic Development and Infrastructure portfolios in the Provincial Council of Bizkaia since 2011, the PNV candidate is still unknown, especially outside the Biscayan territory. The Basque nationalists have the challenge of making it known and, especially, of trying to transfer to Basque society the profile that the PNV has nurtured since it was known that it would take over.
The Jeltzales have been insisting that he is a “reliable” leader – an attribute that was perhaps Urkullu’s great asset -, very prepared – hence the allusions to his CV -, solvent, with the ability to move in an increasingly political field. increasingly global and, at the same time, very close to Basque reality. The challenge is for this story about the candidate to catch on among Basque society and for Pradales to achieve Urkullu’s excellent approval ratings (93% of his party’s voters approve him, 82% of PSE voters, 80% of those of the PP, 64% of those of Podemos, 50% of those of EH Bildu and 48% of those of Vox).
Saturday’s event also seeks to close ranks among the militancy, restless after the electoral setbacks in May and July, and, especially, to send a message of hope given the proximity of the elections. The polls that have been published to date suggest that the dispute between the PNV and EH Bildu will be more even than ever, something that, taking into account the precedents and the distance that existed four years ago, is bad news for Basque nationalists. .
In the coming weeks, the PNV will seek to send a message of comeback, after the poor results of the last elections, and will try to establish the idea of ??a turning point, of a new beginning, with the help of Imanol Pradales. Hence the motto of Saturday’s event: Everything begins here.
Once Imanol Pradales’ candidacy is made official, the question remains as to how long the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, will wait to announce the date of the next elections. The idea that they could take place in April, probably on the 21st, has gained weight in recent weeks, although the jeltzales have been misleading and Andoni Ortuzar even pointed out that they could even take place in June, coinciding with the European elections. In contrast, EH Bildu has claimed that citizens have the right to know when the elections will be held.
