The Basque campaign ran between flat and tedious, very focused on an agenda that logically does not arouse much interest outside of Euskadi, until it exploded in a matter of hours. ETA once again took over the news, Bildu remembered Herri Batasuna more than Eusko Alkartasuna, the issue of memory regained relevance and all the parties set their sights on the nationalist left coalition, demanded by the issue of ethical review of terrorism.
Two hours before the decisive debate between candidates on Basque public television, an unusual event also occurred: a man attacked Imanol Pradales with a spray (later it would be known that he had no political motivation). The campaign threatened to break down just at the decisive moment: at the milestone of the key week. But, against all odds, the crowning moment, the television debate that 411,000 people watched, was closed without appeals to Bildu regarding terrorism. The Basque agenda – public services, housing or security – returned to center stage. And the fire of the campaign, which threatened to set fire to the final sprint, was extinguished.
The trigger for everything had been Pello Otxandiano’s statements in an interview with Cadena Ser on Monday night, in which he avoided using the term “terrorist group” to talk about ETA, using “armed group” as an evasion. And the catalyst had been Eneko Andueza, PSE candidate, who a few hours later, on the same station, called Otxandiano a “coward.”
The leader of the Basque socialists had searched throughout the campaign at that same point for the nationalist formation, forced to strike a balance between the merely strategic reflection of one part of the coalition and the ethical review of another. Between the will not to lose part of its historical support and the need to broaden its base to compete with the PNV. Andueza tried it in the TVE debate, before the Bildu spokesperson, and days later he insisted on the ETB debate in Basque. And yet, when many expected it, Bildu also avoided the topic on Tuesday.
Because? The decision, obviously, is not due to chance, but to the decision to avoid a boomerang effect with unpredictable consequences. During the campaign, the Basque socialists sought to open a gap with Bildu to explain his decision not to agree after the elections and to look to the PNV. The argument of ethical distance is reasonable, although it has the obvious contraindication that the nationalist coalition is one of the partners of the central government in Congress. The ball was getting very big, and the PSOE decided not to contribute to making it bigger.
At a time when the campaigns are increasingly decisive, the strategies – cooked up in the case of the socialists between Madrid and Bilbao – focus on the needs of the moment, even more so with 20% undecided and in the face of maximum equality . With Bildu leading in all the polls, the socialists opted to try to stop them and distance themselves, until they saw that this strategy could be dangerous.
The PNV had felt comfortable in that framework, although Pradales did not want to be the one who tried to portray Bildu as influencing the issue of ETA. He was waiting for Andueza and did not want to risk it. Now, it remains to be seen if a new fire emerges from the ashes of this controversy.
