The celebration of Aberri Eguna, Basque Homeland Day, has had a clearly electoral flavor, with the PNV looking from Bilbao to Pamplona, where EH Bildu has celebrated this day, and calling for mobilization against “the hidden agenda” of the abertzale coalition. The left-wing sovereigntists, meanwhile, have claimed in the Navarrese capital the “vocation of government” of their project, as well as their “national and social ambition” to build “a country that can be recognized in the world for having the best public healthcare.” , the most advanced public services or the best working conditions.”
The speeches of this protest day, which has been celebrated since the Second Republic, have served to summarize where PNV and EH Bildu stand at this point in the pre-campaign. The jetzale formation is concerned about participation and wants to take advantage of the almost three weeks remaining until the elections to try to mobilize its electorate. At Sabin Etxea they believe that inciting fear of a hypothetical EH Bildu government can work to achieve this mobilization, and they appeal to the confrontation of “two models.” EH Bildu, meanwhile, is aware that it has a very high voter loyalty (around 86%), and its challenge is to try to reach new niches, without taking excessive risks and trying to establish itself as a credible government alternative.
The intervention of Andoni Ortuzar, president of the EBB of the PNV, has been expressive: “Things are close, but I am convinced that the PNV is going to win the elections. The issue is how and by how much... you have to reach the undecided to win clearly. What is at stake is not whether PNV is more than Bildu or Bildu more than PNV. That is a very simplistic reading. What is at stake is the response of the institutions of Euskadi to guarantee progress and well-being. "One government is not the same as another, one party is not the same as another."
In this sense, Ortuzar has wondered about the “hidden agenda” of the nationalist coalition: “But, how much have they changed? Will it be real now? Don't they have a hidden agenda out there, an agenda with their true intentions, which is what they would later implement if they govern, as happened in Gipuzkoa? (in reference to the Government of the Provincial Council by Bildu between 2011 and 2015) ", he indicated.
The Jeltzale candidate for Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, meanwhile, has stated that in the April 21 elections it is at stake "to grow in well-being and as a nation" with the Jeltzale formation or to go "backwards like crabs" with EH Bildu. "We have to choose between a better or worse future for Euskadi. We have to choose between two models," he assured.
Pradales has also claimed an agenda with three axes. Firstly, aimed at "updating, solving and improving the social demands" that Basque society currently has, such as housing, Osakidetza, security, education, quality employment, care, demographic challenge or energy transformations. "We are going to be self-demanding to respond with the best public policies to these social demands," he assured.
Secondly, it has proposed a new global agenda that allows Euskadi to grow as a country in the international context, "taking a qualitative leap by participating in networks and nodes of influence in the world. As a third axis, it has exposed its "new humanist agenda, to combat the growing intergenerational gap, the duality in the labor market between good and bad jobs, the gender gap, the digital gap, the gap between urban and rural, the risks of an unjust ecological transition, or inequalities between public and private spheres.
In the event in Bilbao, in addition to the number one for the European elections, Oihane Agirregoitia, the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, also participated, who encouraged in his last Aberri Eguna at the head of the Basque Government to continue building an "open, plural" Euskadi , ambitious and integrative." "The objective is to guarantee opportunities and well-being, against those who only seek to destabilize and encourage permanent conflict, those who confuse and deny the progress of Euskadi and cause collective unrest with impossible demands on the institutions and those who They 'paint' a Euskadi that is not," he indicated.
Meanwhile, EH Bildu, as usual, celebrated the Aberri Eguna in Pamplona. The nationalist formation has participated in a demonstration under the motto Nazioa gara (We are a nation), led by its general coordinator Arnaldo Otegi; the candidate for lehendakari, Pello Otxandiano; the candidate in the European elections; Pernando Auger; the mayor of Pamplona, Joseba Asiron; or the spokesperson in the Parliament of Navarra, Laura Aznal.
In conclusion, Arnaldo Otegi took the floor to vindicate the institutional work of his training. “Once again we want to remember that ours is a project with a government and State vocation. We work and desire a new scenario, and we do this work with national and social ambition. Within that horizon, we want to take advantage of the window of opportunity that opens in the State and we want to do it with national and social ambition. We want to feed a process that will build social majorities to advance towards the Basque State (...). I am convinced that independence will not come if we do not first reach governments, governments with a purpose,” he noted.
Thus, Otegi has claimed that “these governments and this State must be decent” to contribute to “guaranteeing the social rights of the people.” “We want this country to be proud of being anti-racist, anti-otanist, egalitarian, socialist, Basque or feminist, but we also want this country to be recognized in the world for having the best public healthcare, the most advanced public services or the best working conditions” , he pointed out.
The leader of EH Bildu, finally, has denounced that “the right wants to appropriate the concept of homeland.” “We Basque workers have an aberri, a homeland, which is Euskal Herria,” he concluded.
