In four years, the PNV has gone from its electoral ceiling in municipal elections, exceeding 408,000 votes, to a figure very close to its floor in local elections, with 86,000 fewer supports. The jeltzales feared that the low participation would take its toll, although the setback has been much greater than expected. They have recognized an abstention from punishment and have announced a "reflection" on these results. The new electoral panorama, however, precipitates events, and the PNV has made a move with a global agreement to govern with the PSE. The maneuver is risky, since in some squares it needs the approval of the PP, and it will condition the key phase of an electoral cycle marked by the struggle with EH Bildu.
Since the 2012 Basque elections, the PNV has experienced one of the most powerful periods in its history. It had been the only traditional party that had not suffered from the representation crisis of the last decade and, in fact, it was the only force that in the 2015 and 2016 general elections endured the emergence of Podemos, which was very pronounced in the Basque Country. The results on Sunday, on the other hand, are the second worst garnered by the jeltzales so far this century in municipal elections. It is not a debacle and, in fact, it will be able to maintain a good part of the institutional power it held, but it is a severe corrective. It also coincides with the best historical results of EH Bildu, his great rival in Basque politics.
In the jeltzal ranks they maintain that there is no transfer from one formation to another or that, in their case, it is minimal. They believe that part of their voters have stayed at home, something that also happened, although to a lesser extent, in the Basque elections of July 2020. So, that drop in votes was attributed to the pandemic. The last elections have forced us to review that analysis and invite us to reflect: Why is the PNV not managing to mobilize a part of the electorate that supported it until very recently?
Juanjo Álvarez is a professor of Private International Law and a fine analyst of the Basque political reality. In his opinion, he has "sharpened a trend" that comes from behind, but that does not mean "a change of cycle." On the one hand, there has been evidence of "an emotional effervescence from EH Bildu, which has made very good use of his pragmatism and his leading role in Madrid". On the other hand, the PNV "suffers from the exercise of power and from that backbone capacity that it has traditionally had." “That intangible has partly vanished, and it is an important factor, almost of social cohesion, that managed to structure the country, like the CDU in Germany, which when it was disconnected, it lost”, he indicates.
This wear is due, in his opinion, to a "cumulus of factors." He points to "specific electoral strategy errors", a local dimension, which would explain how some mayors have endured better, or at a higher level of demand. "It's not worth going to Trantran, you have to connect and respond to the problems of the citizenry," he says. From his point of view, in some "cases the candidates have not been successful in order to connect with the public" and local circumstances, different in Vitoria-Gasteiz or San Sebastián, "have been able to have weight".
“In addition, there is a dark cloud, a mantra has been installed, which in some cases responds to reality, of a certain despotism, in the sense of governing for the people but without counting on them. In Gipuzkoa, the crisis at the Donostia Hospital, the Basque Health Service-Osakidetza or care have had the effect of overflowing the camel's back. These are difficult times to govern ”, he adds.
From the base militancy in the party, the lawyer Aitor Salinas-Armendariz raised these days a reflection "with a constructive spirit" in order to recover the mobilizing drive. Basically, he considers that the primacy of management as an electoral hook is not enough. “Politics is also feeling and emotions, and it has to have an epic point. It's not just responsibility and management; there must be a search for social and collective transformations. To achieve that epic, the best recipe may be to value the roots of the party, its raison d'être: the achievement of the full sovereignty of the Basque people. This component could have been missing in the campaign and in the very position that the party currently occupies in the social imaginary ”, he indicates.
From his perspective, recent electoral successes have been nourished in part by "a borrowed vote from sectors that are not related to the party's ideology." “That vote can leave you at any time and, perhaps, the so-called captive vote, a Basque ideological and nationalist vote, has been neglected. A part has stayed at home. There is apathy and a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the militancy, which coincides with the general political mood in Basque society”.
The PNV has responded to Sunday's results by announcing a "reflection" and, in parallel, seeking to change screens through that pact with the PSE that will allow it to maintain relevant institutions. Juanjo Álvarez considers that, although this "reality shock" was not expected, the reflection was already taking place in the match and that it will continue internally. The demanding political and electoral calendar, however, will not facilitate this process, which the professor sees as essential for the jeltzales in the face of the new Basque political reality. “Immovable loyalties, fortunately, no longer exist; that is what democracy is.”
