The PSOE unblocks the investiture of Chivite and reissues the pact with Geroa Bai and the left
The situation in Navarra has been unblocked after weeks of negotiations between the PSN, Geroa Bai and the alliance of Podemos and IU (Contigo-Zurekin). The first push was given a few days ago by EH Bildu, who should lend his support, and he did so when he opened to invest María Chivite if the socialist managed to repeat the current coalition before, in an arithmetic similar to that of the current Navarrese Executive. The change in the hemicycle that occurred in the regional elections on May 28 is the key to this complex alliance, since Uxue Barkos's party has lost two seats that have ended up in the bag of the radical nationalist coalition.
The parties have presented the agreement this Monday and it is expected, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, that the Chivite investiture debate will be held this weekend. The election will foreseeably take place on Sunday, since the socialist leader needs the abstention of EH Bildu and a second vote will be necessary, since she does not have an absolute majority in the first. The PSN, which had submitted the agreement to its bases, has made public this Monday that 95% have supported the reissue of the current Government. “It's a good day for Navarra,” defended the organization secretary of the party, Ramón Alzórriz, who has boasted that his alliance has 21 seats, compared to the 20 that add up to “the right and the extreme right”, although he has admitted that the abstention of the radical abertzale coalition is necessary.
Despite this change of stickers, the block that allowed the first government of the socialist has the same 30 seats. The PSN retains its 11 seats and the left-wing alliance Contigo-Zurekin maintains the three that Podemos (2) and IU (1) achieved four years ago. Given the doubts of Geroa Bai and the push of Bildu, the socialists and the left-wing coalition reached an agreement to try to reissue the current Executive. The objective, in essence, was to place all the pressure on the shoulders of the PNV brand of Navarre, which maintained the requirement of having four ministries —among them, Economic Development— and dropped its discomfort that it was the left that managed living place.
The right, for its part, maintains 20 of the 50 seats in the Pamplona Parliament, although in 2019 it presented itself under the brand of Navarra Suma, the alliance between UPN (now it has 15 seats), the PP (3) and Ciudadanos. The two deputies to reach twenty are provided by Vox, which has been released in the Navarre legislature. The alliance between the popular and the Navarrese nationalists could not be repeated after the conflict between the two parties on account of the march to the PP of two defecting UPN deputies after the negotiation of the labor reform of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. One of them, Carlos García Adanero, has achieved the seat in Congress with the popular after the recount of the foreign vote, favorable for the PP to the detriment of the PSOE.
🌹Today is an important day for all Navarrese and Navarrese
❤️/ Our land will continue to be a bulwark of progress led by @mavichina
🗣️@rapmon266 pic.twitter.com/lN0yLHaA6v
– Navarre Socialists / ❤️ (@PSNPSOE) August 7, 2023
It must be taken into account that Geroa Bai is a coalition resulting from the union of the Basque nationalists in the foral community with the party of Uxue Barkos, Geroa-Socialverdes. And the division between those two souls is what causes the current tension.. The faction related to Barkos is more favorable to the agreement, while the wing aligned with the PNV is divided and there is a part, headed by the parliamentarian María Solana, more reticent to the agreement with the PSN. After a morning of meetings within the nationalist formation, the three parties of the Navarrese Executive went into lockdown at 5:00 p.m. this Monday with the aim of unblocking the situation. “They are not raising substantial things, but procedural, non-functional elements,” explained a source familiar with the conversations, who was confident in the positive outcome..
Another source familiar with the negotiation points to internal doubt within Geroa Bai after that loss of two seats.. Part of the coalition considers that the Government with the PSN has ended up being detrimental to the Navarrese brand of the PNV, points out this member of one of the Executive parties. There are voices that question the hard position of the jeltzales in the foral community, something that contrasts with the position they maintain in Bilbao, where collaboration with the PSE is in good health, despite the logical tensions between two government partners in Madrid and Victory. The fact that the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE at the federal level, Santos Cerdán, comes from the Navarrese federation of socialists is not trivial.
The positive outcome of the talks allows accelerating the steps for the investiture of María Chivite, which must have the active abstention of EH Bildu, as in 2019. The debate in the Parliament of Pamplona could be set for the end of this week, which would leave the inauguration of the socialist next week, at the latest. It will be inevitable that the position of the radical Abertzale coalition to allow the re-election of Chivite does not slip into the negotiations for the formation of the Table of Congress. The PP and Vox will take advantage of the collusion between the PSN and Bildu to profit, in the same way that the PSOE takes advantage of the formation of coalition governments between popular and ultra-conservatives, with Aragon as the most recent example.
The negotiation in Pamplona is a kind of test for the PSOE, which is holding discreet talks for the opening of Parliament. At the finish line, the election of the president of Congress, which will be very tight, given the tie between blocks. Above all, after the regrouping of the potential allies of the PP around Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who is in a position to have the 172 seats that he adds with Vox, UPN and the Canary Coalition. The decisive button will be in the Junts seats, as seen from the same election night and as confirmed after the CERA vote count, which gave one more seat to the PP.