The PP has not achieved the strategic objective of being influential in the Basque Country, where in all probability the government coalition between the PNV and the PSE will be reissued without the need for its support, but the result of the polls does allow it to celebrate that, After twenty years of decline, the party is rising in votes and seats thanks to Alberto Núñez Feijóo and his candidate, Javier de Andrés, who has led a moderate campaign.
Despite having focused its proposals on day-to-day life, as recognized by the PP spokesperson, Borja Sémper, after the meeting of the steering committee, that is, on issues such as housing, health and public services, the project does not has obtained significant support from Basque society and only one in ten voters has chosen the ticket of Feijóo’s party.
But the PP proposal for Euskadi, as for Catalonia, is not short-term, stated Sémper, who has assessed that the important thing is that the party recovers and reverses the negative trend of two decades to grow by 40,000 votes compared to the regional elections four years ago, when the PP participated in a coalition with Ciudadanos.
In contrast, the PSE, which won two seats, has only risen six tenths in percentage, so Sémper has wondered what is behind the joy of the socialists, who have come third and have seen how, thanks to the prominence that, In his opinion, Pedro Sánchez grants EH Bildu in Congress, with laws such as the Housing Law, and in institutions such as the Pamplona City Council, the nationalist left has soared to the point of challenging the hegemony of Basque nationalism.
“Arnaldo Otegi’s party has grown by nine seats and more than eleven points since Sánchez has been President of the Government,” explained the popular spokesperson, for whom the PSOE leader is a “voting machine for the independentists” who puts his interests first. own interests to those of the country as a whole: “What is good for him is bad for Spain,” he declared. “After what we have experienced, it makes me sad that the level of democracy that we all demand of ourselves disappears with Bildu and Sánchez toasts with champagne,” he lamented.
However, there is another factor that the Basque PP deputy did not want to leave aside, and it is the generational factor: young Basques, who have not experienced ETA violence up close, vote mostly for EH Bildu, which is why Sémper has insisted in which Feijóo’s project is “the alternative for management and good government, constitutional and moral, that Spain needs.”
In this sense, he has regretted the attitude of the PSOE, which the PP accuses of “surrender” to the independence movement both in Catalonia and in Euskadi: “I am surprised by the joy of the socialists,” said Sémper, who sees Pedro Sánchez acting as “crutch” of nationalism when, as he recalled, the PSE, led by Patxi López, came to preside over the Basque government.
Even so, making a slight self-criticism, the executive’s spokesperson acknowledged that “there is a long way to go.” In the Basque Country “it has never been easy” for the PP, he stated, and although “today (the context) is less dramatic”, thanks to the disappearance of ETA, “it is still complicated”, he assumed. “It is not enough and we aspire for more, to win,” admitted Sémper, who defended an “open, modern Euskadi that has a leading role in Spain.”
