Young Basques no longer vote for constitutionalism: "Socialist grandparents die and their grandchildren vote for Bildu"

they stopped terrorism. They choose a nationalist ballot, preferably that of

EH Bildu

, or they abstain. That is, either they do not vote or they vote for the heirs of the violent.

“There is no generational change,” he explains

Raphael Leonisio

, professor of Political Science at UNED, experienced in the Euskobarómetro de la

University of the Basque Country

, a prestigious survey that for 25 years thoroughly analyzed the identity, preferences and changes of the Basques. «The electorate of the PP and the PSE ages a lot. Socialist grandparents die and their grandchildren either abstain or vote nationalist, preferably Bildu. But of course not, or very little, constitutionalist, “he explains.

The data supports this analysis.. The average age of PP and PSOE voters are the highest: 60.1 and 57.9 years in the last regional elections, according to the

CIS

. Among Basques between 18 and 24 years of age, the most numerous voting memory corresponds to EH Bildu (21.1%), closely followed by abstention (20.3%) and then by

GNP

(16.7%). Between 25 and 34 years old, abstention (21.7%), EH Bildu (18.1%) and the PNV (16.3%) win. In these age groups, the votes for socialists and popular are very scarce (between 0% and 8.9%).

For decades, when the name of Rentería (39,200 inhabitants) was heard, the first thing that came to mind were burned containers and buses. In this stronghold of the Spanish left -four PSE mayors for 25 years-, ETA killed the municipal police officer and socialist militant

vincent gajate

, and executed the double crime that perhaps best expresses the cruel persecution against non-nationalist politicians. In 1997 the organization assassinated the PP councilor

Jose Luis Caso

and a year later to his replacement,

Manuel Zamarreno

. They were both friends and humble tinkers. Today, a quarter of a century later, no one from the PP sits in plenary session and EH Bildu governs with the support of

Can

. What happened?

“In part, all this is not taken into account,” replies Isaac Palencia from the house in the town of Rentería, the most attacked. “It seems unfair to me, but we have to look to the future: no one is going to vote for you because of what you have done in the past, but because you are useful and work for what worries people: housing, employment…”.

Born in

Bembibre (Leon)

, the socialist candidate arrived in Rentería when he was less than a year old, where his parents -he, a miner- had relatives and were looking for a better life. After working as a soccer referee and setting up a sports equipment sales company, Palencia wants to once again turn the PSE into the first local force. Bildu, he says, has “a long way to go”, but the socialists work “every day” to achieve it.

Isaac Palencia, Socialist candidate in Rentería (Guipúzcoa).

UNANUE

ARAB PRESS

The truth is that the non-nationalist Basque vote presents a constant decline and not only among young people. According to data from the analyst and former leader of Euskadiko Ezkerra

Kepa Aulestia

, “the great drop” in this vote in the Basque Country occurred between the general elections of November 2019 and the regional elections of 2020:

PSOE

, PP,

vox

and also Podemos lost half of their support. Together, they went from 557,074 to 272,580 votes. Aulestia and Leonisio coincide in pointing out at least one cause: the vote of non-nationalism is reactive. In other words, it is activated as a reaction to what it sees as a threat from the independence movement.. it happened with the

Ibarretxe plan

, and in Catalonia with the

1-O

, when

cs

won the elections. But now that sovereignty is dormant.

“The disappearance of ETA and the way in which it has disappeared have opened a stage in which the situation of tension that we were experiencing ten or fifteen years ago has subsided, and this has generated a quite palpable sense of relief and forgetfulness,” he explains. Aulestia. «Along with this, nationalism has parked the independence movement. The PNV is not making a sovereignist speech. And neither is EH Bildu: his speech is close to Podemos and the ease with which he handles his government pacts in Madrid and with issues such as the Housing Law is giving him a whitening that helps him settle in and forget about the past. Their campaign is very focused on the future: they present the past as the mud they want to drag them into.

But the past is there. 12 years have passed since ETA does not kill and five since it was dissolved, and yet the bad forecasts for non-nationalist parties persist. The PSOE aspires to maintain itself, installed almost as an appendage of the PNV in a coalition that will probably take over a good part of the city councils and with at least two of the three councils, owners of the foral haciendas.. The unknowns this 28-M are basically limited to Vitoria and Guipúzcoa, PNV and EH Bildu dispute the victory. And that the Álava capital was a popular banner.

Neither has a problem evaporated from the years of lead: the PP still finds it difficult to complete its lists and has gone to other regions to ask its militants for help, arguing that, even without terrorism, “the lack of freedom and intimidation They continue to be present for the heirs of those who until recently killed ».

«On the one hand there is the important presence that the [central] Government, also before the PP, always gives to the PNV and now to Bildu. Against that it is impossible for socialists and popular people to do anything here,” he points out.

Pedro Chacon

, Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of the Basque Country.

“It also happens that after so many years of terrorism, the Basque social reality has been completely disfigured,” he adds.. Chacón remembers how among the first murdered politicians from

UCD

, with what that meant for the democratic right to take root in many Basque municipalities.

There is also the phenomenon of those exiled due to threats or fear, who never again voted or had children in Euskadi, although it is almost impossible to accurately estimate them today.

There are also public spaces “totally controlled by nationalism,” Chacón emphasizes, in which there are no flags of Spain but there are ikurriñas and even posters in favor of ETA prisoners.

And, finally, “an internalized fear” continues, because the past is very recent and it was “very hard.”

Daniel García presents himself for the PP in Labastida (Álava).

PAULINE ORIBE

ARAB PRESS

“There is still hostility”

“There is no longer violence, but there is hostility,” sums up Daniel García from Labastida, a small town of 1,500 inhabitants nestled in the Rioja Alavesa and focused on wineries. There this young man won the 2019 elections, but did not win the mayoralty due to a pact between the PNV and EH Bildu.

García is an economist, when he was only 16 years old he published the book

The crisis seen from the age of 16

(Círculo Rojo, 2013), has worked in a tourist accommodation, and did something as strange for being Basque and young as joining the PP. Although he points out that the

Rioja Alavesa

it's a special area. He is right: the PP was strong there for years and, says García, it can be so again.

-And what is the relationship with EH Bildu in the town?

-It's a small town. The personal relations in the plenary session are cordial and of a shared good intention to work for the people. We are clear about the red lines with Bildu and when they raise ideological motions we already know that we are not going to agree. But this is a town and here you have to agree for a center for the elderly or for LED lights. Although of course it hurts that four years ago they took the mayoralty from us because we are not nationalists. Because that was the reason.

Fernando Molina

, a history professor at the University of the Basque Country who is an expert in the study of nationalism, looks back further when asked the million dollar question:

-Why have the parties that were victims of ETA not come out of their end stronger, but rather the contrary?

-To a large extent that part of how the

Transition

, because it did not resolve how to establish a mobilizing patriotic dynamic. In other words, the Transition was an improvisation based on some certainties that facilitated the pact between Francoists and anti-Francoists on a consensus in which the idea of the Spanish nation did not generate conflicts.. The weight of the nationalism that had been experienced during the dictatorship was lowered until it became a diffuse Spanish nationalism or patriotism that does not appear on the streets and whose symbols are not visible on the street.

Basque Country

and

Catalonia

, against a peripheral nationalism that, on the other hand, is built from the culture of anti-Francoism.

Molina argues that, even after ETA, the problem with so-called constitutionalism is that “it lacks a narrative of the nation”. With all these deficits, what is “explicitly Spanish” is not related to “democracy, modernity and progressivism”, even though “we are at the moment with the least weight of independence sentiment among the Basques”.

And why do young people vote for EH Bildu? In this campaign, and beyond the controversy over its candidates convicted of terrorism, the coalition of

Arnaldo Otegi

has reinforced a profile close to Podemos, which, although it is often forgotten, starred in a huge surprise in 2016 by winning the general elections in the Basque Country, beating the powerful PNV. EH Bildu's strategy involves stealing all the possible votes from the purples, who have self-destructed in the Basque Country with the invaluable help of

Pablo Iglesias

. And it seems that the play is going well for the abertzales. Otra cosa es, como dice el candidato socialista de Rentería, que sea justo.