With just 17 days to go before the elections to the Basque Parliament on the 21st, the Basque pre-campaign has not yet started and the electoral atmosphere is far from dampening social life in the Basque Country. The Easter holidays, which in the case of schoolchildren and some workers include the whole of Easter Week, have forced the parties to dose and delay their electoral efforts and, moreover, in Bizkaia, which concentrates more than half of the population of the community, the focus is much more on the final of the Copa del Rey that will face Athletic and Mallorca on Saturday.
In the streets of Bilbao, Durango or Gernika, it is much more common these days to hear about trips to Seville to witness this sporting event, quite an event for a part of Biscayan society, than about the latest proposal by Imanol Pradales ( PNB), Pello Otxandiano (EH Bildu) or Eneko Andueza (PSE). This is a circumstance with an obvious banal component, but which, despite this, the parties have assumed as normal.
"The campaign will be concentrated in a few days. There are many votes at stake that will be decided in just 10 days", point out from the team of one of the candidates. This situation coincides with a trend, incipient in Basque society, in which the vote is increasingly volatile and the campaigns decide more, so it will be key what happens once the electoral maelstrom breaks out, with current affairs fully focused in Basque politics, a good number of debates between candidates and the electoral contest targeting networks or bus shelters.
"In the last CIS around the Basque elections, 6% of respondents say they decide their vote in front of the ballot box, 5% during the day of reflection and 20% during the last week. This means that 31% of the electorate will decide in the next few days", explains Ainara Villaño, political scientist and expert in political communication from the Silván consultancy
According to the data of the latest Sociometer of the Basque Government, the average of undecideds is around 27%. "We are talking about people who say 'I don't know' when asked who they will vote for, not declared abstainers, even if they may not vote in the end. This 27% is outrageous; in 2020, at this point, they were 10%, and in 2016, 12%", adds Villaño.
The concern about the lack of electoral tension, however, goes by neighborhood. In Sabin Etxea it is notorious, while in EH Bildu a certain indifference is perceived. The Jeltzales have a vote loyalty of 63% with respect to the 2020 elections (that is, six out of ten of those who voted for them indicate that they will repeat), while in the Abertzale coalition this loyalty is 88%, always taking as a reference the appointment of 2020.
The PNB breathed a sigh of relief after learning the CIS data, which gives them a representation of 30-31 seats, similar to the current one, after conducting 5,000 surveys, a very high sample. However, they are aware that the margin of error soars with such a high percentage of undecideds. The Jeltzales believe that their success on April 21 is due to mobilizing their electorate and appeal to Bildu's fear of "experiments" in management. The tedious climate of the pre-campaign, however, does not seem conducive for these harangues to take effect. Basque society is not for this, something which, on the other hand, is still a sign that Basque politics has just settled into normalcy.
