Díaz Ayuso breaks into the Basque campaign to insist that ETA is still alive and that EH Bildu is outlawed

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a candidate for re-election as Madrid president but also a symbolic candidate on the list of municipal elections in Bilbao, enjoyed a walk through Bilbao this Saturday, in the westernmost Basque Country, in total freedom and with a very breathable spring atmosphere . The leader of the PP, without there having been a single incident and without the Ertzaintza agents deployed having had to intervene, has been able to walk from the Gran Vía de Don Diego López de Haro to her rally in the Euskalduna palace in Bilbao and taking pictures with his supporters, and also playing with babies and dogs, while his detractors peacefully expressed their disdain by not coming close. However, her conclusion in her speech was the one she had been maintaining for days: that ETA is still alive. And she has assured that while the Government of Pedro Sánchez “has brought the murderers closer” to the Basque prisons -something that most victims’ associations accept- “the murdered have been moved away”. “The remains of Miguel Ángel Blanco were taken to Orense. Even once he was dead, the harassment did not end for him, ”she has cried.

Iturgaiz rejects that he has decided not to be a PP candidate for lehendakari in 2024

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The visit of Díaz Ayuso has wanted to be the central act of the PP in Euskadi, although rather it has been that of only one specific part of the PP, headed by that of Bizkaia. In Álava, where the party has governed and aspires to do so again, they have rescued Alfonso Alonso in the campaign, something that Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself highlighted during his visit to the Basque campaign. Laura Garrido, who is the regional general secretary and is from Álava, has been with Díaz Ayuso at all times. And, in Gipuzkoa, the candidate Mikel Lezama insists that, based on ideological discrepancies, a period of understanding is necessary with all forces, which includes EH Bildu. Muriel Larrea, the president in Gipuzkoa, has come close.

The Abertzale coalition -and its lists- has been the protagonist of the campaign since its inception. Not even the resignation of the seven ex-terrorists from ETA has stopped the controversy, with Díaz Ayuso joining the drums of Vox to outlaw the formation led by Arnaldo Otegi. “[EH] Bildu, heir to ETA, presents, for at least the fourth time in recent years, convicted and unrepentant terrorists on his lists. This time there are 44. What society can resist something like this? Imagine that the same thing happened in any other country, with any other type of criminal, for example, convicted of fascism or jihadist terrorism. […] In fact here these criminals, for now, are going to be the direct rulers of the closest life: that of the municipalities. For this reason, let us remember that the local Administration has always been considered a key part of the strategy of the Batasunos. Where they rule, the law of silence reigns. As they have always done, with guns or with public power”, he pointed out in a speech with a low tone of voice, little at the rally, although it was cut off at various times with applause.

And he added: “The disguise of woke ideology of the program of [EH] Bildu barely makes up the real plans, the usual ones, the ones that they actually put into operation, as far as they leave them, in the municipalities in which they govern: secession, the annexation of other regions from the rest of Spain and France, and the imposition of a totalitarian regime, based on silence and fear, which would deprive more than half of the population of their constitutional rights”.

He has insisted that the illegalization of EH Bildu should be studied, although Genoa is not something he contemplates. “Parliament should pronounce itself and refer the matter to the Supreme Court so that it can tell us if such a party complies with the Law on Parties and if it is legal. I think so. That the Basque Country, Spain as a whole and the European Union need that their highest powers, the legislative and the judicial, should pronounce on this. If we don’t, we may soon regret it. It is striking that just by mentioning that one can resort to the mechanisms provided for in the Law on Parties, such rejection occurs in some. Something similar happened with the application of 155 [en Catalunya]: for decades many saw it unthinkable or undesirable; but it ended up being applied and saved a terrible moment in our history. How long will we put up with totalitarianism occupying our institutions without hiding its intention to put an end to them? ”, He pointed out before highlighting the millenary character of the Spanish nation.

According to the Madrid president, Euskadi has two faces. “For different reasons I have come to the Basque Country on numerous occasions and I have experienced very different situations. When I have done it in a personal capacity, I have met a deeply kind people, with great humor, friends with their friends, traditional and very familiar. When I have done it as a journalist and later as a member of the Popular Party, I have seen the other face of the same society that, being as Basque as the first, was paying with deep suffering the consequences of standing up to the totalitarian regime that directs every movement of the Basque Country for years. During the last few years, the totalitarians have gone from living on the revolutionary tax to living on everyone’s taxes. Without the need to kill, they have continued to make life impossible for those who did not comply with their wishes, ”she said. And she has added that this is beginning to happen throughout Spain: “It 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. On the contrary, his Madrid “has become a refuge of freedom for those who have lost everything” and has, in the opinion of Díaz Ayuso, one of the best public health services in the world.

The Bilbao candidate Díaz Ayuso, who has joked that she could think of being a councilor if that were the case, although it is a political impossibility, has been received by the Basque president, Carlos Iturgaiz, whose candidacy for lehendakari in 2024 is not guaranteed under the statements by Iñaki Oyarzábal, by the Biscayan president, Raquel González, and by the candidate in Bilbao, Esther Martínez. In the first line of the Euskalduna act were also Beatriz Fanjul, deputy, or Luis Gordillo, who jumped from Ciudadanos to the Basque PP. Several hundred militants attended the Díaz Ayuso rally, waving PP banners, ikurriñas and Spanish flags. In addition to the anthem of the game on loop, they have listened to songs by Shakira, the Black Eyed Peas or Michael Jackson.

Díaz Ayuso’s visit has not been exceptional. Like her, dozens of PP positions in Madrid are fill-in candidates on the lists in Euskadi, particularly in Bizkaia, where a campaign was launched due to the lack of cadres to complete the candidacies. She herself has quantified the so-called paratroopers at 1,400. Several examples: Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, former president of the Catalan PP and now in Madrid, appears in Arcentales (700 inhabitants) and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, the chief of staff of the Madrid Presidency, closes the list in Durango. In this condition, he visited the Biscayan town in the run-up to the campaign and gave a controversial speech in which she stated that in Euskadi “there is no freedom” and that the environment is “unbreathable”. 24 hours before Díaz Ayuso, another former president, Esperanza Aguirre, arrived in Bizkaia, who participated in an act in Leioa.

And the PP also has scheduled a speech by José María Aznar this Tuesday. Exactly twenty years ago, with ETA operational, Aznar was also a candidate in Bilbao. Rodríguez, who was a government spokesman with Aznar, has gone to Bilbao with his boss. He has not taken the floor – the PNV, for example, has harshly criticized his speech in Durango, like the PSE-EE the message of Díaz Ayuso – and has limited himself to accompanying the delegation armed with a corporate scarf of the PP.

Iturgaiz, in his speech, has followed Díaz Ayuso’s line of argument point by point. He has said that Euskadi has a “democratic deficit”. He has affirmed that “it is true” that “ETA no longer kills now” but has indicated that “the lists of EH Bildu go with the seal of the ax and the snake”. “The pro-Eta members that some launder are the ones who rule this country by the work and grace of Pedro Sánchez,” he stressed.

The Basque PP is facing these elections at one of the moments with the least institutional presence in its history. In the 2020 regional elections, he obtained four out of 75 seats, although he now has five due to the jump of one of the two Ciudadanos elected officials, Luis Gordillo, to the ‘popular’ ranks. In the General Meetings of Gipuzkoa, the PP has only one of 51 seats and some polls suggest that this result could be repeated in Bizkaia. In the municipal elections of 2019, he achieved a total of 55 councilors compared to 185 in 2007, for example. It only has two mayors, in the small towns of Navaridas and Baños de Ebro, both in the Rioja Alavesa and both with around 200 inhabitants, although it was also the force with the most votes in two others in the same region, Laguardia and Labastida. His great objective is to recover ground in Vitoria. The PP led the Basque capital from 1999 to 2007 with Alfonso Alonso and with Javier Maroto between 2015 and 2019. In the same periods it controlled the Álava Provincial Council with Ramón Rabanera and Javier de Andrés. He also won the elections in 2019. “Always by your side. From Madrid, at the service of Spain”, Díaz Ayuso closed his visit to Euskadi while Depeche Mode’s ‘Just can’t get enough’ rumbled from the Euskalduna speakers.