The PSOE, powerless in the presence of ETA assassins on the Bildu lists: "Better votes than bullets"

This Tuesday, the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite) announced that on the EH Bildu lists for the May 28 elections in the Basque Country and Navarra there were 44 convicted of belonging to or collaborating with the terrorist group ETA. Seven of them directly participated in murders and some appear in the same towns where they committed the crimes and under the aliases they used in the organization.

The PSOE is a party that has added 12 people to the long list of those assassinated by ETA and one of its main pride is that it was a key player in the end of the band –ETA ceased armed activity in 2011, during the government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero–. For this reason, these types of gestures from their parliamentary partners feel like a jug of cold water in some sectors of socialism.

[Bildu presents two ETA members as candidates in the towns where their victims were murdered]

“I would prefer that they did not have blood crimes, the truth,” says another voice from the party. “It doesn't feel good. Also, it is difficult to justify that we agree with them when these things are seen. But there is no other, it is perfectly legal and, in part, it is what we asked them to lay down their arms and participate in the democratic system,” added another deputy.

That restlessness is only recognized from the inside. outside is different. Virtually no official from the PSOE or the socialist wing of the Government wanted to make comments this Wednesday in the Congress of Deputies. Only Patxi López, spokesman in the Lower House, acknowledged that he did not like “anything”, although he avoided saying more about it.

The ministers who went to Congress for the control session chose to avoid the press. Teresa Ribera spoke vaguely of the measures against the drought that are approved this Thursday and, when asked about ETA, she said that she had to enter the plenary session because it was running late.

The minister spokesperson Isabel Rodríguez literally ran out and no member of the Executive participated in the traditional huddles in which current events are discussed in a more relaxed way.

[Gamarra blames Sánchez for Bildu having 44 ETA members on his lists and the president avoids answering]

Only spoke from the United We Can sector. The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, has stopped to talk about the matter and has asked for “maximum respect” for current legislation and has said that Bildu “is a democratic party that chooses its lists.”

“There are two things here,” they comment from the environment of a prominent socialist baron. “The first is whether it is legal. That has to be decided by the Electoral Board and if they have fulfilled their crimes and have the right to present themselves, we cannot say anything. But what bothers us is the second, the policy of pacts that the Government has with the people who do this,” they add.

“In the café and the parliamentary group, what we have been talking about is that they have always fought for the end of ETA and for them to form part of democratic life,” added another deputy.. “The comrades from the Basque Country are taking it more harshly, but in the end the only option left to us is that, even if it is hard, it forms part of democratic normality,” he underpins.

From the PSOE in the Basque Country they also recognize that this is “day to day”. “Every time there are elections, whether regional or municipal, we find cases of people who have been in the band in one way or another,” they comment from the formation. They accuse, yes, the PP of “agitating” these issues every time they occur and remember: “we were also victims, but democracy defeated them.”