The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, visited Bilbao yesterday and insisted on the two fundamental ideas that stand out during the campaign: "ETA continues" and the EH Bildu coalition must be outlawed. The popular candidate even pointed out that the European Union should speak out. "If we don't do it, we might regret it", he indicated.
Ayuso arrived in Bilbao in the early afternoon and had a meeting with the municipal candidate for mayor, Esther Martínez, whose electoral list symbolically closes, as well as with other Basque militants. From there, she went through the city center on a walk that she described as "nice" and in which she was complimented by many passers-by. At the Popular Party meeting at Palau Euskalduna, however, he drew a Basque Country that had little to do with the one that had received him minutes before, between the effusiveness of supporters and the indifference of the rest.
"The harassment that seemed to affect only a few who seemed to complicate their lives for pleasure today continues strong here - in the Basque Country - and is spreading throughout Spain. Throughout Spain, journalists, businessmen, politicians, judges or artists are harassed in a coordinated manner", he pointed out.
His intervention had, in this sense, a bit of déjà vu. On the one hand, because it brought together a dedicated and excited popular militancy, far from the situation that a Basque PP experiences in low hours. The speech was a shot of hope for the local militancy. On the other hand, because it seemed to go back to a bygone era, in the Basque Country of two decades ago, of terrorist harassment and lack of freedom. Ayuso highlighted the validity of a speech by Aznar delivered in Bilbao in 2003, Iturgaiz referred to statements attributed to Xabier Arzalluz, former president of the PNB, and, in general, there was constant talk of ETA, even from Herri Batasuna or Batasuna.
"That's why I repeat that ETA continues: the goals are the same, and the means are the most convenient for them at every moment", pointed out Ayuso. The Madrid president drew up a story to justify the notoriety that the issue of Bildu has acquired this campaign, 12 years after its appearance. He attributed it to the lists: "The rest of Spain wanted to believe that these people were in the institutions, like the others, working and defending their ideas. Until we came face to face with the scandal of the lists".
Carlos Iturgaiz, however, uncovered a letter that invites us to think that the idea of introducing the issue of EH Bildu into the campaign was prior. According to the leader of the Basque PP, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez telephoned him to indicate that Ayuso and himself would be part of the candidatures and campaign in Euskadi.
