Neither Urkullu nor Otegi; PNV and Bildu will play the Basque elections with candidates without pedigree

I Iñigo Urkullu (Alonsotegi, 1961) and Arnaldo Otegi (Elgoibar, 1958) will be presidents in 2024. The current Basque president accepted “as a man of the party” that the PNV prevents him from running for a fourth term even though he is the one who will decide when to call the elections. The coordinator of EH Bildu will confirm today that he is resigning from being a candidate. “I have earned the right to decide,” Otegi warned in the previous weeks with a phrase that marks the differences between the two.

Euskadi started the Basque electoral pre-campaign on August 29 with a full-fledged Lehendakari. An Urkullu willing to shine his third term with a record budget of 15,025 million euros, with public job offers in health and education, with large economic projects such as the Basque Hydrogen Corridor and with political proposals such as the “constitutional convention » to address a debate on purinational Spain.

Three months later, Urkullu feels “in shape” but has been removed by his party from a feasible fourth term to make way for Imanol Pradales, a huge unknown despite the promotion campaign deployed by the PNV since last Saturday. Pradales limited himself yesterday to thanking his party for the “honor” of proposing a candidate in a process that will culminate, if there are no more surprises, on January 20 with his official proclamation.

The change of Urkullu for Pradales is justified as “an ambitious proposal for generational change,” as Andoni Ortuzar explained yesterday to some two hundred officials and followers gathered in Sukarrieta (Vizcaya) on the occasion of the tribute to Sabino Arana, the founder of the PNV, buried there.. The nationalist leader appealed to “rejuvenated hands with new ideas to maintain the usual challenge” just after having emphasized the PNV's gratitude for Urkullu's 12 years of “work” at the head of the Basque Government. An eskerrik asko sealed with a hug on the Sukarrieta stage and wrapped in warm applause. Urkullu sat down quickly while being acclaimed and hid his gaze by directing it towards the ground.

This gesture with which he tried to hide his feelings is linked to his decision not to reveal how he found out that his party denied him the possibility of continuing four more years in Ajuria Enea. “I'll keep it for myself,” he said, kindly, after concluding the act.. The contained pain of Urkullu and his entourage was also reflected in the emotional hug between Urkullu's wife Lucía Arieta-Araunabeña and Manu Castilla, the Lehendakari's closest advisor.

Urkullu not only offered to hug Imanol Pradales yesterday in the run-up to the tribute to Arana, but also complemented the party event with an institutional message to fulfill the “social contract with Basque society.”. Since his forced replacement was made public, he has insisted to his advisors to “continue with all his heart” to comply with the government program agreed with the Basque PSOE in 2020.

“I still don't know when the legislature will end,” he insisted yesterday despite the fact that all parties, including the PNV, accelerated their internal machinery to go to the polls in March 2024, three months before the official end of the legislature.. Urkullu – the only one with the capacity to press the electoral button – yesterday alluded to “circumstances not only in Euskadi but at the state and European level” as key to setting the electoral date.

A campaign in which Arnaldo Otegi will once again be the protagonist today. The leader of the Abertzale left has not only made it clear that the decision will be his – paradoxical in an almost assembly-based organization – but also that he wants to control the next four years of EH Bildu from his unquestionable leadership.. The coalition that aspires to defeat the PNV at the polls in 2024 will reveal the name of a candidate in the coming weeks. Otegi resigns from being Lehendakari aware that the PNV and the Basque PSOE will maintain their alliance in 2024 if they together achieve more than 38 seats.