Five years after the group left the weapons, for the first time will elect tomorrow a regional government without the shadow of violence; and the campaign points to the economy instead of nationalism
VITORIA.- That the vote is secret could be a life insurance policy in the Basque Country. “The day of the election the more you are worth to take the about well-closed house, not out to be the wrong person to see what party you were,” says Aitor Etxeandia, an old socialist militant.
sitting on a bench in the central square of Amurrio, a mountain village between Vitoria and Bilbao, in which the murderers of ETA left for years to her brand of blood. A few meters away, Íñigo Errejón, the media’s “number two” of We, gives a speech in front of a handful of followers. No cops in sight. The bars around are still full of people taking in the sidewalk to the skewer noon, indifferent to the show.
There is something amazing in that normalcy. For the first time, the basques will vote on tomorrow, a regional government without the pervasive fear of the bullets and the bombs of the terrorist group that killed more than 800 people in 40 years of violence.
ETA announced that it was leaving to attack to the end of 2011, months before the previous regional elections. But the wounds were too fresh and there was skepticism. In the year of the first elections in basque democracy, in 1980, there were 93 murders political. And going forward, the deaths always multiplied in campaign time.
Now the candidates walk through the cities without bodyguards. The people discuss in the cafés without lowering the voice or turn the head. The parties prioritize the economy and social issues on the agenda of nationalism, and the consequences of terror.
Iñigo Urkullu, regional president (lehendakari) and a candidate for re-election, believes that the basque society is “moving towards coexistence.” The leader of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) is a tightrope walker of the language that is fighting for greater self-government, but admits that demand independence “is not realistic”.
“My commitment is to create jobs and ensure growth. It was time to look to the future without getting lost in fantasies,” he says to THE NATION at the end of a ceremony in Vitoria. It is in a small square surrounded by custodians who are distracted with cell phones. The neighbors pass by without paying attention.
The moderate Urkullu reject the challenges to Spain as the driving Catalan separatists. It will be by conviction, or by resignation. The social barometer that makes its government showed this month that the number of basques who want independence are at historic lows: 23%.
The lawyer and writer José María Ruiz Soroa sees this as an urge for oblivion: “The basque society has a bad conscience about terrorism etarra and his memory does nothing but stir up dark feelings of shame retrospective”. Thus, “the truths defended by the death lose meaning and are replaced by nationalistic policies of low intensity”.
The Basque Country (Euskadi) 2.1 million inhabitants – is the region of Spain with lower unemployment (13%) and with a higher percentage of young people with a university degree. At the root of his prosperity is the uniqueness of legal that allows you to manage your taxes.
Despite all of this, the violent past is still there. The figure of the most talked about in the campaign was Arnaldo Otegi, the former leader of ETA’s political wing, and that he was released from prison this year after serving a sentence for terrorism.
Otegi wanted to be a candidate for lehendakari by EH Bildu, the current logo of the pro-independence left, in open defiance of the legal incapacitation that weighs on him. Was unable to do so, even if your face is repeated by thousands on posters and graffiti.
The speech Otegi in campaign dilutes the claim of the independence movement. “A country’s share” is the slogan of the posters. It presents itself as a standard-bearer of peace, but refuses to say that killing was wrong, or to demand that ETA is dissolved one at a time.
Bildu suffers with the emergence of we Can, which offers a cocktail of nationalism, light and the radical left. The party of the indignados takes as a candidate to Pilar Zabala, and sister of a member of the ETA at which the vigilante groups that operated in the 80 kidnapped, tortured, murdered and buried in quicklime.
Zabala promotes the coexistence, avoids be defined on the independence and insists that his goal is to fight “against inequality and social injustice”.
The polls indicate that Bildu and we Can compete for second place. The intrigue is whether they will be able to join together to oust Urkullu, a favorite to win without a majority. To form a government, the PNV will need a alicaído Socialist Party, that would be fourth ahead of the Popular Party (PP).
The institutional stalemate in Spain was caused by another anomaly: the constant presence of the political leaders in Spanish in basque land. Although their parties are deflated here, Mariano Rajoy (PP) and the socialist Pedro Sanchez believe that the result of morning in the Basque country and in Galicia (where it is also chosen government) can influence the pulse that is kept to see who of the two will be the next president.
“we got here with a sample of stability,” said Urkullu. In the past decade would have seemed like the irony of bad taste.
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