The PNV will maintain its policy of alliances after the municipal and regional elections on May 28. The occasional display of pronouncements of a sovereignist nature in the Basque Parliament and in the Aberri Eguna will not divert him from a path, that of the pacts with the PSE, which has led him to his highest levels of institutional power. The aforementioned messages, in fact, have to be interpreted within his struggle with EH Bildu, an area in which he will continue to maintain direct confrontation.
The words in the last hours of Koldo Mediavilla, responsible for institutional policy of the PNV, are expressive of what is the position of the jeltzales in terms of the policy of pacts, where they do not want to move their position one millimeter.
In an interview on the Ser chain, Mediavilla has settled that he sees "very crazy, initially" to close agreements in the institutions with EH Bildu after the elections and affirmed that "the pacts with the PSE could be given again" if the circumstances were repeated ” because “they have worked” and have been a “guarantee of stability”.
The PNV boasts of being the party that best knows how to read where Basque society is at and understands that, at this moment, the public especially rewards the stability offered by the pact with the Socialists, which remains the favorite among its electorate , according to the latest Deustobarometer.
This commitment would also guarantee him to maintain power in the provincial councils and capitals, according to all the surveys, although in a tough fight with EH Bildu regarding the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council and the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council.
The statements of the PNV in recent days must be interpreted in this context. When Andoni Ortuzar vindicated his party as "the authentic abertzales", he did it in the key of confrontation with EH Bildu, against whom he attacked on several occasions the same speech of the Aberri Eguna.
In the same way, when the PNV approved a few days ago a republican initiative of Podemos in the Basque Parliament that included the "recognition of the plurinational character of the State, and the consequent right to decide of the peoples", it claimed an essential part of its character abertzale. There is no change of script or strategy on the part of the jeltzales, focused on the pragmatic bet that in the last decade has led them to their best electoral records and their highest levels of institutional power.
The PNV will therefore maintain its commitment to agreeing with the Socialists, a path that also has strategic derivatives in Navarra (the jeltzales are part of the Geroa Bai Basque coalition, which supports the Socialist president María Chivite) and in support peneuvista to the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
The Basque Socialists are also in favor of continuing with the pacts with the PNV, although during the electoral campaign they will avoid underlining this point and will accentuate their own profile. The PSE does not want to appear as a force submissive to the jeltzales, aware that the pact with the PNV generates doubts in a part of its electorate. In any case, except for the debacle of 28-M in their great strongholds (Irun, Eibar, Portugalete, Zumarraga...), the Socialists will think the day after of reissuing the pacts in force in town halls, provincial councils and the Basque Government.
