The president of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has visited Bilbao this afternoon and has insisted on the two fundamental ideas that she has been underlining during the campaign: "ETA continues" and EH Bildu must be outlawed. The popular candidate has even indicated that the European Union should rule on the matter. "If we don't, we may regret it soon," she said.
Ayuso arrived in Bilbao early in the afternoon and held a meeting with the popular candidate for mayor, Esther Martínez, whose electoral list symbolically closes, as well as with other local militants. From there, she has toured the center of the town on a walk that she has described as "pleasant" and in which she has been entertained by many passers-by. At the Popular Party rally in the Euskalduna Palace, however, she has drawn a Basque Country that she had little to do with the one she received minutes before between the enthusiasm of the supporters and the indifference of the rest.
“The harassment that seemed to affect only a few who seemed to complicate their lives for the sake of pleasure is still going strong here today and is spreading to the whole of Spain. Throughout Spain, journalists, businessmen, politicians, judges or artists are harassed in a coordinated manner when they become uncomfortable ”, he pointed out.
Ayuso has spoken in this sense of a "totalitarian regime that has led every movement in the Basque Country for years" and that, now, would be "extending" to the rest of Spain. He has also harshly criticized Basque nationalism, while defending that he was in Bilbao today for a "nation of a thousand years of culture in Spanish." "It hurts me to think that perhaps the generations to come cannot inherit it like we do," he said.
His intervention has had, in this sense, something of déjà vu. On the one hand, because he has brought together a dedicated and excited Basque popular militancy, far from the situation experienced by a PP in low hours in Euskadi and which is probably the fifth municipal force in Bilbao. His speech has been a shot of illusion for the local militancy. On the other, because he seemed to go back to a time in the past, to the Euskadi of two decades ago, of terrorist harassment and lack of freedom. Ayuso has highlighted the validity of a speech by Aznar delivered in Bilbao in 2003, Carlos Iturgaiz has made reference to some statements attributed to Xabier Arzalluz, former president of the PNV, and, in general, there has been constant talk of ETA and even Batasuna, Herri Batasuna or Euskal Herritarrok have been mentioned.
"That is why I repeat that ETA continues: their goals are the same, and their means are convenient for them at all times," Ayuso pointed out. The Madrid president has outlined a story to justify the notoriety that the issue of EH Bildu has acquired 12 years after the birth of the coalition and in the middle of the campaign. She attributes it to the controversial lists. “The rest of Spain has wanted to believe that these people were in the institutions, like the rest, working and defending their ideas. Until we have come face to face with the scandal of the lists ”, she has expressed.
Carlos Iturgaiz, however, has uncovered a letter that suggests that the idea of introducing EH Bildu into the campaign was prior. As the leader of the Basque PP has pointed out, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez telephoned him to tell him that Ayuso and himself, along with other popular leaders, would complete their candidacies and campaign in the Basque Country.
Rodríguez already visited Durango, a town where the electoral list closes, at the end of April with a surprising speech, which seemed extemporaneous. “The Basque Country suffers from an unbreathable environment that places it outside of the West (…). Since when are the Basques sad and have to wear their hair in a bowl cut with an axe? ”, He indicated.
Those statements did not achieve the notoriety they seemed to seek. Then came the controversy over the EH Bildu lists, after a complaint from the Covite group of victims of terrorism. Ayuso has decidedly opted to focus his electoral campaign on the community of Madrid on this issue, even ignoring the requests of Consuelo Ordóñez and other victims of ETA to stop using this issue politically.
This afternoon he has shown in Bilbao that he does not intend to get out of that story.
