When the current Prime Minister for Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill, visited Bilbao in May 2018, reaching Stortmon Castle, headquarters of the Northern Irish Executive, was for her party, Sinn Fein, little more than a dream and placing itself as The first political force, both in the south and in the north of the island, seemed unattainable. Meanwhile, EH Bildu, which had invited its Irish partners for a political event, was still trying to recover from the wear and tear caused by the emergence of Podemos and was focusing its aspirations on repositioning itself on the Basque political scene and reversing the negative trend it had experienced since 2015. Six years later, the two formations are experiencing a sweet moment brought about by strategic decisions in which there are similarities.
To gauge the moment that the centenary Irish party is experiencing, Sinn Fein has gone from around 7% of the votes in the general elections of the Republic of Ireland in two decades to reaching 25%, positioning itself as the leading force. In Ulster, in the north of the island, the party has clearly won both in the 2022 parliamentary elections - a milestone for this formation - and in the municipal elections last year, in both cases with around 30% of the votes .
In the opinion of Amaia Alvárez Berastegi, journalist, doctor in Law from the University of Ulster and today a professor at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA), in the north of the island this success began to be achieved more than two decades ago, with the gradual renunciation of violence by the IRA, although it would not be understood without taking other factors into account.
“In the north, his commitment to peace has been key and it is something that has been seen since the late 90s. Every step he took towards peace led to better electoral results. The Brexit issue has also been key and they have had leadership that has worked. In addition, Sinn Fein has benefited from the decline of the SDLP, the Social Democratic and Labor Party. Before the peace process, it was the nationalist party with the most support in the north, thanks to John Hume, and yet it has no longer had a leadership capable of keeping up with Sinn Fein.”
The rise of this party, in any case, is being much more striking in the Republic of Ireland, as it is a party that in the 90s did not even reach 2% of the votes. “Also in this case the end of violence has been key. The fact that Sinn Fein has not been linked to the IRA for many years now makes it more attractive to new generations also in the south. The other big key has to do with its social commitment. The 2008 crisis was brutal in Ireland and social policies were revalued, since society itself was asking for them. Sinn Fein knew how to see it and position itself in defense of those policies.”
The parallels with Euskal Herria Bildu become evident. The nationalist coalition burst onto the Basque political scene between 2011 and 2012 as an alliance between the nationalist left that had supported terrorism and Eusko Alkartasuna, Aralar and Alternatiba, a split from Ezker Batua-Izquierda Unida. Beyond the evidence that a part of the coalition still has an ethical path to follow, its electoral background shows that Basque society has rewarded this commitment to the end of ETA's violence with an electoral support that not even Herri Batasuna Not even the sum of the parts came close.
The other great similarity has to do with this social turn and, especially, with this commitment to the primacy of this axis over the national one. To understand it, we must look at the 2015-2016 electoral cycle, very marked by the effects of the economic crisis and the crisis of representation that manifested itself in those days.
Podemos burst into the Basque Country and Navarra with great force, and EH Bildu experienced its worst years since its emergence. The nationalist coalition had to reposition itself politically, and clearly opted for the primacy of the social agenda. As in Ireland, it is what society itself demanded. This bet, also helped by the rapid decline of Podemos, has been successful for EH Bildu, and in the May municipal elections it was already clearly above its electoral records in 2011, when of its dazzling irruption.
The two formations even coincide in their commitment to a gradual replacement of their historical leaderships, more contaminated by the stigma of violence. Michelle O'Neill replaced Martin McGuinnes, who died that same year, as leader of the party in Northern Ireland in 2017. Meanwhile, its most charismatic leader, Gerry Adams, abandoned the leadership of Sinn Fein in 2018 and was replaced by Mary Lou McDonald, the architect of her party's historic victory in the 2020 Republic elections.
The change in EH Bildu has been more gradual, something that has a lot to do with its zeal when it comes to preserving internal cohesion. The nationalist coalition has also opted for bicephaly, with Arnaldo Otegi as general coordinator of the coalition and alternative candidates for the main electoral events.
In any case, EH Bildu has confirmed during these years that the sum of the parts contributed much more to its project than being a mere continuation of what was Batasuna, and politicians such as Oskar Matute (from Alternatiba), Maddalen Iriarte (independent) , Joseba Asiron (linked in the past to Eusko Alkartasuna) or Jon Iñarritu (Aralar), all of them without links in the past with the nationalist left that supported violence, have been key in the electoral growth of the formation.
The parallels between the two formations, therefore, are clear and easy to draw. However, EH Bildu's interest in claiming good harmony with its Irish partner is striking. In the middle of the pre-campaign, the party's candidate, Pello Otxandiano, traveled to Belfast and Dublin to meet with Michelle O'neill, Mary Lou McDonald and Eoin O'Broin, the party's housing officer.
Aner Ansorena, consultant and political analyst at Hauda Comunicación, believes that the Abertzale coalition has compelling reasons to approach Sinn Fein at a transcendent moment at the electoral level. “First of all, EH Bildu wants to show that its political project is possible. In electoral marketing we talk about the difference between objectives and dreams. In this case, they want to show that their objective is possible, that it is possible for a party like Sinn Fein to come to government and that the independence process is possible. They put an image and reference to that project and to that claim of the new status, which they have been talking about during the campaign. They talk about the change underway and they do it by looking at Ireland, where it has already happened,” he explains.
EH Bildu also seeks to project an institutional image of its candidate and show that they are not an island in Europe. “We see Otxandiano, who has the problem that he is not well known, in an image usually reserved for institutional leaders. They thus place him closer to Lehendakaritza. The same thing happened with the visit to Pere Aragonès in the Generalitat, placing Otxandiano in an institutional task that would correspond to a lehendakari and along with a president, who has a referential image from the point of view of the Basque independence movement. Furthermore, the coalition wants to convey that it has international relations with people like him and that there are other modes of governance, different from those of the PNV, which are what it claims,” he adds.
The nationalist coalition, in fact, is particularly vehement when it comes to highlighting its place in Europe. They talk about the “popular and sovereign lefts,” “kilometer 0 leftists,” they say, that “are acquiring greater notoriety in Europe.” There, Sinn Fein appears as a preferential partner with whom they share a similar journey. The image of Pello Otxandiano and Eoin O'Broin discussing housing policies in Dublin could not be more representative of that journey towards pragmatism.
