The placid Avenida de Zugazarte, which connects the neighborhoods of Las Arenas and Neguri to Getxo, is one of the few places in the Basque Country where the Popular Party keeps its electoral muscle practically intact. In some of the sections of this English-style residential area, the populists exceed 65% of the votes, both in the municipal and general elections, EH Bildu practically does not exist and the PNB is far from posing a threat at the polls. The electoral superiority of the PP is as insulting as it is unreal, if you take into account the Basque Country as a whole, and that is why Alberto NúñezFeijóo paid so much attention to the PNB during yesterday’s visit to this area.
“There are parties that have lost their personality, such as And it is not worth saying that their economic policy is different from that of the PSE because they always vote the same”, said Feijóo at the event in Las Arenas. The popular leader also criticized the PSOE, although he made it clear that the rival to beat is the PNB: “There are only two paths. The same as always with the same as always and with the usual tabarra. That of the nationalists. Or take on new challenges, with the PP”.
There is some concern among popular Basques about the trend shown by the polls. The majority give them between five and seven seats, out of 75, a result similar to what they achieved four years ago, in coalition with Ciutadans. In this way, the populars would remain at their electoral minimum, far from the representation they achieved just a decade ago (the 2009-2012 legislature had 13 seats, and the 2012-2016, ten) and an abyss of the historic result of 2001, when they got 19 representatives.
The reasons that explain such a marked drop in such a short time are different, although there is a widespread feeling among the popular that in the post-terrorism Basque Country, in which the speeches of total opposition to ETA and its political objectives do not mobilize , a moderate PNB, away from the sovereignist path, fishes too easily in his electoral barn, especially in the municipal elections or the elections to the Basque Parliament.
Bastions like Zugazarte have always been very exceptional in the Basque Country, but the popular ones have also lost strength in the capitals. In last year’s municipal competitions, they were fourth in Bilbao and Sant Sebastià and third in Vitoria. They maintain only a fraction of the electoral strength in general elections, albeit far from the best records, between 2000 and 2010.
The growing bipartisan perspective that Basque politics acquires, moreover, favors the anti-Bildu vote going to the PNB, something that forces the popular to measure the discourse of fear of the abertzale coalition. Despite this, Feijóo could not avoid appealing to this factor yesterday: “Bildu is more afraid of one vote from the PP than ten votes from the PNB and a thousand from the PSOE”.
For this reason, during yesterday’s visit to the Basque Country, the second in four days, he considered that the Basque citizens have the opportunity to “make history” on April 21 by betting on their training, “the only alternative to prevent EH Bildu from reaching the institutions”.
