The Basque side of the 23-J elections, the PNV-EH Bildu struggle, this campaign has taken the form of a duel for two, with Aitor Esteban and Oskar Matute as references. The jeltzales have entrusted their luck in some complicated elections to the popularity and solvency of their man in Madrid, which is multiplying these days. The campaign of the Abertzale coalition is turning out to be more choral, although Matute is assuming a relevant role, consistent with the will of EH Bildu to widen its space to be able to dispute the game against the PNV.
The elections next Sunday take on the form of a second round in Euskadi, after the 28-M elections. The third round, unless there is an electoral repetition, will come to the conclusion of the current electoral cycle, in the spring of next year, with the European and Basque elections, which the Lehendakari will probably coincide with on June 9.
The municipal, regional and parliamentary elections of Navarra on March 28 left much better feelings in EH Bildu than in the jeltzales, who lost 84,000 votes, despite continuing to be the leading force in the Autonomous Community of Euskadi. The Abertzale coalition, meanwhile, prevailed as the first force in Vitoria-Gasteiz, in Gipuzkoa, came close to victory in Donostia/San Sebastián and in Pamplona, and overtook Geroa Bai (a coalition of which the PNV is a part) in Navarra, in addition to to prevail in the majority of towns of intermediate size.
After the elections, the PNV sought to move quickly from the screen and, thanks to the pact with the PSE, it has managed to maintain the three councils, leave the Vitoria-Gasteiz Mayor's Office in the hands of the Socialists, which EH Bildu longed for, and, in general, retain much of its institutional power. In some cases, however, the pact with the PSE has also required the support or acquiescence of the PP, and it remains to be seen if this situation takes its toll on 23-J.
It is one of the questions of the imminent electoral appointment, in which the PNV will have to test the magnitude of the abstention from punishment that it suffered in May and that it has already recognized. At the same time, it will be interesting to analyze the force with which EH Bildu arrives and to what extent its good results were due or not to the municipal factor, that is, to the pull of its municipal candidates.
The PNV, therefore, does not arrive in the best conditions for an already complicated appointment. General elections have traditionally favored state-level parties, with the possibility of governing in Madrid, and, for example, in the 2015-2016 electoral cycle, the PNV managed to obtain 110,000 more votes in its best elections (the elections to the Basque Parliament of 2016) than in the general elections of 2016, in which one in four votes was left. The differences between one and the other elections were reduced in the 2019-2020 electoral cycle.
The jeltzales, in any case, fully trust the solvency of Aitor Esteban, whom they contrast against that Pedro Sánchez-Alberto Núñez Feijóo dichotomy. In fact, in these times of electoral canvases, the PNV has placed a huge advertisement at its headquarters, in Sabin Etxea, in which its man in Madrid is pitted against the leaders of the socialists and popular groups.
Esteban is trying to teach and explain that this is not a presidential election and that the role of whoever the citizens choose does not end after the inauguration, but continues for four more years. The number one of the PNV for Bizkaia presents himself as the great defender of the interests of the Basques in Madrid, of the issues that interest the Basque citizenry and of the investments that could be strategic. During the campaign, he has been underlining the value of the investments that the Basque Group has achieved during these four years, although some, such as the possibility of building a second Guggenheim in Urdaibai, raise doubts among some of his potential supporters.
The PNV, moreover, is abandoning the ambivalence with which it began the campaign in relation to future pacts. The jeltzales had basically been maintaining that their preference was to give continuity to the current coalition government, although without closing the door to an eventual understanding with the PP, as long as Vox was not in the equation.
After the pacts between popular and the extreme right throughout the Spanish geography, the PNV has left this option practically ruled out. The Basque nationalists cannot allow a part of their voters to stay at home for fear that their vote could serve to promote Feijóo to Moncloa. At the same time, the PNV wanted to make it clear that "they will not be anyone's crutch", not even the PSOE, and that a possible new legislature agreement should be shielded from possible breaches and linked to what they call the Basque agenda.
EH Bildu, for its part, has opted to give relevance to Oskar Matute, protagonist in the seven-party debate this Thursday. His response to Iván Espinosa de los Monteros (Vox) when he wanted to use the 26th anniversary of the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco at the hands of ETA was one of the moments of the debate.
“The night before Miguel Ángel Blanco was murdered, I was at a vigil in Ermua, I was asking for his freedom. I don't know where you were, ”he snapped.
The veteran Basque politician, a symbol of the transversality sought by EH Bildu, has become one of the values of the coalition in its crusade to widen the political space of the sovereignist left.
His formation, Alternatiba, a split between Izquierda Unida-Ezker Batua, was key in the formation of the coalition 12 years ago, although most predicted that it would have a testimonial and passing role. It hasn't been exactly like that. Since its creation, EH Bildu has debated between two options: to be a renewed version of the old Batasuna or to become a sum of the four parties that make up the coalition (Sortu, EA, Alternatiba and the extinct Aralar).
The pendulum has swung in one direction and another, although the latter option seems to be winning the battle, just look at its candidates in the Basque capitals in the last municipal elections or in these general elections.
EH Bildu needs to cover a very wide space to compete with the PNV, which occupies a very large, central and, at times, cohesive space in Basque society. The Abertzale coalition needs to finish recovering the space that Podemos ate up around 2015-2016, accentuate the social discourse and also need to grow in environments such as Greater Bilbao, a pending issue that, in part, managed to begin to overcome the past 28-M.
The figure of the former leader of Ezker Batua, like other coalition candidates who do not come from Sortu and who are gaining prominence, helps him advance on those fronts.
In addition, Oskar Matute, with a very clear history of opposition to violence when ETA killed, allows the coalition to face in other terms the debate that bothers him the most and that continues to be his heaviest backpack: the critical review of terrorism. Matute is the embodiment of the fact that EH Bildu, with its backpacks and contradictions, is a more complex balance of forces than the mantra that both Feijóo and Espinosa de los Monteros drew in their debates (both spoke of the "political arm of ETA").
An excellent speaker and with a social discourse capable of arousing sympathy south of the Ebro, Matute is consolidating itself as one of EH Bildu's references in elections to which the coalition attaches great importance and in which, beyond what that it is not in their hands (the reissue of a progressive government), they are looking for a second check on the PNV. Opposite, Aitor Esteban will try to get out of the duel, raise his head and leave his swords high.
