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Spain’s July general election had unexpected results. The leader of the centre-right Popular Party (PP, EPP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, won the elections with 136 MPs but fell short of the more than 150 seats polls predicted he would win.
A sum with the 33 MPs of the Conservative party Vox (ECR) is not enough for the two parties to govern. Even with the support of regional parties Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) and Coalición Canaria (CC), the right wing does not hit the 176 MP absolute majority. They only total 171 seats, still five MPs short.
On the other hand, the seeming loser has been Pedro Sánchez. However, despite losing to the PP, he intends to keep the premiership.
How? With the support, not only of the far-left party of acting vice president Yolanda Díaz—his natural partner. Sánchez intends to renew his understanding with the Catalan separatists (ERC; The Greens / EFA) and the Basque regional nationalist EH Bildu (GUE / NGL).
If he consolidates their support, Pedro Sánchez would be the first Prime Minister in the history of the Spanish democracy that governs after losing a general election.
Sánchez is set to rally the support of the anti-Spanish parties to stay in power. It will not come cheap.
Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of EH Bildu, celebrated his party’s rise of 51,000 votes. He pointed out that this implies taking “a new step forward towards the political change that is already underway”. Otegi, who was prosecuted in his day for belonging to ETA, celebrated beating the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV; Renew Europe) and multiplying the presence of separatist senators in the Spanish Senate.
Bildu is considered the “political arm” of now-extinct terrorist organization. The opposition parties are disturbed by the normalisation of a party linked to a group that killed 856 Spaniards, wounded thousands, kidnapped dozens, and forced into exile 250,000 Basques and Navarrese.
During the campaign for the May regional and municipal elections—that prompted Sánchez’s call for a snap election—Bildu included former ETA members to their lists. Seven of them had been convicted of murder and other criminal charges: The number six on the list of a municipality in Álava, Agustín Muiños Diaz, murdered almost 30 years ago José Antonio Julián Bayano the owner of a nightclub in Vitoria; Begoña Uzkudun Etxenagusia—number three on the municipal list of the Basque town of Régil—killed a UCD councilor José Larrañaga Arenas; Juan Carlos Arriaga Martínez murdered Jesús Alcocer Jiménez; Juan Ramón Rojo González murdered Gil Mendoza; Asier Uribarri Benito participated in the murder of José Manuel García Fernández, a member of the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil).
The opposition heavily criticized this decision from Bildu. To them, putting former terrorists was insulting to the families of the victims. The national indignation forced Prime Minister Sánchez to issue a statement, where he opposed the legitimacy of these criminals.
Some have highlighted the leader of the Socialist Party’s (PSOE; S&D) attitude as hypocritical. Sánchez has shown contempt and demonised a constitution-abiding, democratic party like Vox for its conservative views. At the same time, he seems to favour parties with the track record of Bildu, despite having promised not to come to any arrangements with them.
Sánchez’s purported sympathy for the pro-ETA party has led him to carry out questionable decisions such as transferring the managing power of prisons to the Basque Country’s regional government. Several convicted ETA terrorists were relocated to Basque prisons after this concession.
In addition, the Socialist leader negotiated with Bildu many controversial pieces of legislation such as the law of “Democratic Memory”—which justified the exhumation of Spain’s former dictator Francisco Franco—the law of Housing, and the budget.
Bildu’s record is stained. However, this has not been enough of a deterrent to Pedro Sánchez. In all certainty, they would have a larger influence if Sánchez gets four more years.