The PNB will manage its relationship with the PP in the coming weeks with ambivalence and leaden feet. The Jeltzales do not want to open the door to the possibility of future support for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. It is very complicated for the numbers to come out without Vox in the equation, but leaving this option half open allows them to revalue their representation in Madrid and gives them a significant share of prominence. The PNB, in addition, needs the approval of the PP in some important places of Basque politics to, through its global pact with the PSE, block the way to EH Bildu. This ambivalent position with respect to the popular ones, however, carries a very sensitive risk with regard to a part of its electorate and at a very compromised moment, after its first electoral setback in a long time and on the eve of elections that are not they will be simple.
The president of the PNB, Andoni Ortuzar, has pointed out this week that the pact they have just re-edited with the Socialists is compatible with an eventual understanding with the PP in Congress. “We lived in pacts with the PSE while we supported the government of President Rajoy”, he pointed out. He then clarified that the biggest “disadvantage” regarding the popular leader “is called Vox” and, also, “the journey to the hard right that Feijóo is making, probably as a pre-election or electoral tool”.
In other words, the PNB sets two conditions that should be met for a hypothetical support for Feijóo: a more focused PP and leaving Vox out of governance. He does not close the door to the popular leader and sees him as compatible with the agreement with the PSE. Ortuzar’s words respond to a tactical position that the PNB has historically maintained. A classic that, this time too, can place him 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 PNB this legislature has been that the Government of Pedro Sánchez has taken its unconditional support for granted. Much of the 12-point agreement by which they supported the investiture of the socialist leader has remained on wet paper, and the PNB has tired of demanding that the pact be fulfilled, as well as a preferred partner role that does not has always succeeded.
Leaving Feijóo’s way slightly open allows them to be in a position of negotiating strength and to 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 PNB will also need the support or at least the acquiescence of the PP so that the PNB-PSE pact can block the way to EH Bildu in Gipuzkoa, Vitoria or Durango. In the future, they will have to understand each other to guarantee governance in these places.
This position can generate many problems for the jeltzales in Euskadi. The PNB has lost 86,000 votes in the last municipal elections, coinciding with a moment of effervescence for EH Bildu. They are aware that they have suffered an abstention from punishment and they arrive at the general elections touched. It is not just that the vast majority of its voters, like the party itself, prefer the PSOE as an ally; part of its social base abhors the option of a rapprochement with the PP. For this reason, in the coming weeks, the GNP will be seen in a complex game of balances.
Another thing is that this option, a Feijóo government without Vox in the equation and with the PNB among its supporters, has real options to prosper. The popular people would need an exceptional result, which for the moment no poll has pointed to. If it happened, the PNB would explore the agreement.
