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Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 43, 1991
The Election of 28-O, 1990
- continued
...
Kepa Aulestia, head of the EE, summarized the position of the moderate
Basque parties when he said that "The Statute, which is of all of
the parties, is the most important agreement that we have obtained
throughout our history." He
continued, however, to demand that the Spanish state comply with the
"letter and the spirit of the Statute."
In particular, the Basque government and parties would like to
see the transfer of the relevant portion of the huge Social Security
system, INEM, the creation of a Basque Bank and participation in
existing state owned businesses in the Basque country.
As a campaign strategy, even the parties with a national base (CDS, PP, IU)
insinuated to the Basque electorate that more transfers should be
forthcoming out of Madrid.
The PSOE, which rules in Madrid, also takes a narrower view of the Statute.
Ramón Jáuregui, head of the party in Euskadi, points out that
"even though the nationalists complain that it isn't sufficient,
we are constructing an autonomy with much jurisdiction."
With increasing frequency, the conflict over transference has provided
litigation for the courts. Over
the last four years, the Basque government initiated eleven
constitutionality suits against the Spanish government, which in turn
has countered with five of its own. To
some extent, then the issue will be resolved by the Spanish
Constitutional Court.
The other issue which united all of the other parties against the PSOE was
the complaint that Madrid did not do enough investing in the Basque
country, particularly in its infrastructure.
Specifically mentioned was the construction of a freeway from
Burgos to Malzaga, the construction of a high-speed train, and the
expansion of the superport of Bilbao. Garaikoetxea
and others complained that "the infrastructure projects do not
have a budgetary consignment. The
government has had good PR, but little has actually been
accomplished." He further
claims that only 3% of total foreign investments in Spain comes to the
Basque Country, with more than 75% of it going to Cataluña, Madrid,
and Andalucia. The EE also
admonished the PSOE to remember that "the only projects that are
being built in Euskadi are those that are financed and done in care of
the Basque institutions." Ramón
Jáuregui (PSOE) retorts that "we are obtaining an economic
development like this country has never seen."
According to Jáuregui, this meant the creation of 30,000 new
jobs and 3,000 new businesses each year, with unemployment subsequently
dropping "from 23% to 16% in the last three years."
But Felipe González, as if to imply that the Basques must first get their
own house in order, asserts that terrorism has been a strong brake upon
the economic development and self-government of the Basque Country.
For example, several years ago the provincial government of
Guipuzcoa and the autonomous communities of Euskadi and of Navarra
agreed to build a freeway which would improve area travel.
The armed organization ETA denounced the construction of the
freeway, claiming it would destroy the ecology of the valley of
Leizaran. ETA threatened
violence if the project were not halted.
HB, the party closely associated with ETA, made the freeway
issue a cornerstone of its campaign platform, calling for a public
referendum to decide the issue. All
of the other parties opposed HB on this issue, echoing the sentiments
of the PSOE's Jesús Eguiguren: "we
are not going to consent to having pistols kidnap the democratic will
of the Basques. We are not going to permit a terrorist organization to determine
the public works which we have to do."
The extent of Euskadi's rights to future self-determination continued to be
a central issue in the 1990 election. Based
on the view that independence of the Autonomous Basque Community from
the Spanish State is not possible under the present Spanish
constitution, the HB party has chosen not to accept the constitution or
the institutions (parliaments, etc.) derived from it.
In support of its position, HB points to the fact that less than
a third of the Basque Country voted in favor of the constitution in the
1978 referendum.
By contrast, the Basque Parliament in 1990 sought by legislative act to
officially confirm the right of the Autonomous Community to
self-determination. The
legislation was approved by a total of 39 votes produced by the PNV, EE
and EA. The 23 parliamentarians
who voted against the bill were all centralist parties, PSOE, CDS and
PP. HB, perhaps the most
radically independentist of the nationalist parties, withheld support
for this pro-independence bill based on its above-described rejection
of the very parliament in which the measure was voted.)
It is easy to imagine that the legislation will be tested
before the supreme court on grounds of constitutionality.
The elections of 1990 were additionally important in relation to the issue
of provincial rights and interests, as reflected by the emergence of
yet a third category of parties, this one with primary alliance to a
province. Unidad Alavesa (UA) or
Alava Unity, was a party created shortly before the elections, after a
schism in the PP.
In a sense, UA candidates used the nationalists' arguments against the
nationalists themselves. Political
parties which represented Basque nationalism throughout the three
provinces had traditionally decried, with considerable justification,
an oppression from Madrid against Basque language, culture, and
political representation. Unidad
Alavesa turned these issues against the Basque government.
According to UA candidate Ramón Garín, "We Alvaese are an
oppressed minority. Our
language, our culture and our right to work in [public] institutions
are denied. We are oppressed
precisely by our brothers." The
UA attacked the centralization of the Basque government which, it
claimed favors Vizcayans. It also struck a chord of resentment in
Alava against the powerful
political machine of Bilbao and Vizcaya, which UA believes is
responsible for taking local water and giving them, in return, a
garbage dump.
In addition to the right to leadership, each of the victors would also be
entitled to the remuneration which goes with it.
An idea of the level of this compensation (excluding per diems
and other subsidizations) can be found in published salaries for 1990,
as follows (at the prevalent 93 to 1 exchange rate):
Lehendakari, $102,000; Minister, $90,000; President of
Parliament, $98,500; and Parliamentarians, $36,600.
Results of the 1990 Elections
The results of the parliamentary elections of the 28th of October, 1990,
contrasted with the elections of 1980 and 1986, are shown below:
|
March 9, 1980 |
|
Electorate: 1,554,927 (40.2% abstentions) |
| |
% |
Votes |
Seats |
| PNV |
38.1 |
349,102 |
25 |
| PSOE |
14.2 |
130,221 |
9 |
| EA |
|
|
|
| HB |
16.5 |
151,636 |
11 |
| EE |
9.8 |
89,953 |
6 |
| PP (CP-AP) |
4.8 |
43,751 |
2 |
| CDS |
|
|
|
| UA |
|
|
|
| Others |
16.6 |
167,462 |
7 |
|
November 30, 1986 |
|
Electorate: 1,650,506 (28.86% abstentions) |
| |
% |
Votes |
Seats |
| PNV |
23.64 |
269,647 |
17 |
| PSOE |
22.04 |
251,328 |
19 |
| EA |
15.85 |
180,738 |
13 |
| HB |
17.47 |
199,185 |
13 |
| EE |
10.8 |
124,079 |
9 |
| PP (CP-AP) |
4.85 |
55,343 |
2 |
| CDS |
3.54 |
40,531 |
2 |
| UA |
|
|
|
| Others |
|
|
|
|
October 28, 1990 |
|
Electorate: 1,680,929 (38.77% abstentions) |
| |
% |
Votes |
Seats |
| PNV |
28.51 |
289,151 |
22 |
| PSOE |
19.87 |
201,607 |
16 |
| EA |
11.41 |
115,755 |
9 |
| HB |
18.36 |
186,277 |
13 |
| EE |
7.77 |
78,855 |
6 |
| PP (CP-AP) |
8.23 |
83,482 |
6 |
| CDS |
0.65 |
6,652 |
0 |
| UA |
1.41 |
14,373 |
3 |
| Others |
|
|
|
The clear winner was the PNV, which won the greatest number of votes and of
parliamentary seats with 22, a dramatic increase of 5 seats over 1986.
It also won, to no one's surprise, the province of Bizkaia.
The greatest surprise came from UA, the splinter group formed from a schism
within PP. This group garnered
three seats in its first election. HB
showed the constancy of its followers by maintaining its 13 seats
intact. It also won the largest
number of votes in the province of Guipúzcoa.
PP also made strong advances, tripling its number of seats from
two to six.
Other parties remained as significant political forces but lost varying
degrees of power relative to the
previous legislature. PSOE,
for example, remains the second largest party with 16 seats, but lost 3
of its seats from the previous legislature. It still won, however, the
province of Alava. EA and EE lost 4 and 3 seats respectively, or a
third of their previous representation.
CDS lost all representation in the Parliament.
Everyone seemed to be surprised by the high number of abstentions.
In a country where politics has rivaled soccer as a national
pastime, an election won by the disinterest of nearly 40% of the
population had many candidates promising to reflect upon why they had
not brought forth the party faithful. But,
perhaps they miss the point of their own success if one believes that
the level of absenteeism has a direct relationship to a fulfilled
electorate.
Coalition Resulting from 1990 Elections
Clearly none of the parties had won sufficient parliamentary seats to govern.
A pact between two or more parties would be required to form a
government.
By contrast to 1986, in 1990 the issue of coalition had been incorporated
into the campaign. The
PSOE had indicated a willingness to unite once again with the PNV,
although as equal partners or better. The
PNV had also indicated that it would not have an objection to govern in
partnership with the PSOE. EA
proposed a Basque Nationalist government composed of the PNV, EA and
EE. EE expressed
willingness to join a coalition of PNV, PSOE and EE, or of PNV, EA and
EE. HB also proposed,
during the campaign, its willingness to take part in a nationalist
government made up of the PNV, EA and HB.
The PNVs strength as the most widely supported nationalist party
made it indispensable to any coalition government, and this party was
going to wait until after the elections to weigh the respective dowries
offered by each suitor, before accepting or rejecting any of them.
HBs offer to form part of a nationalist government was conditioned by its
demand that the goals of this coalition include resolution of "the
problems behind the confrontation between Euskadi and the Central
state, and that [the coalition] articulate the concrete mechanisms to
recognize the right to self-determination, territorial unity, the
inclusion of Navarra and the configuration of a new jurisdictional
political framework in which the Basque language would be the national
language." Not
surprisingly, those points closely parallel HBs campaign platform.
It was unlikely that the PNV, having masterminded the political isolation
of ETA and HB, would now pact with this party.
Lehendakari Ardanza stated that, "I am not one, nor is my
party, to exclude anyone from a possible future coalition, except he
who, from the outset, is already excluding himself."
If there was any question as to his intention, he quickly
cleared it up. "One
thing is clear. Until they break
with servitude [to ETA], nothing can be done."
After the votes were counted it became clear that several of the above
combinations would work. A
PNV-PSOE partnership could govern with an absolute majority of 38
seats. So too could a grouping of PNV, EA and HB with 44 seats.
A PNV-EA-EE composition was more complex in that it would produce only 37
parliamentary votes, one less than that needed to garner an absolute
majority: if all of the
other parties were to oppose this coalition, it would fall one vote
short. And yet, in order
for that to happen, HB would have to join forces with the Spanish
parties which are its very nemesis, with the example of PP being not
only Spanish, but also rightist, about as far from HB on the political
spectrum as possible. Furthermore, HB only rarely attended Parliament. These
factors made a PNV-EA-EE composition complex but workable.
This combination had the advantage of forming a moderate Basque government
which included a broad left-right spectrum of the population. Basque nationalist
parties had won two-thirds of the votes and
seats and, clearly, a nationalist government would go a long way in
satiating an overwhelming nationalist sentiment. If a PNV-EA-EE coalition
could be negotiated, it would have the
potential to be extended to impact municipalities.
A PNV-PSOE government had the advantage of repeating a government which
had, by most accounts, worked well during the last legislation.
With only two parties, it was also the simplest formula and had
credibility both in Spain and the Basque Country and promised even
greater appeasement's from the Spanish government.
After the unequal election results were known, the PSOEs Jáuregui
manifested his willingness to form a coalition with PNV.
The PNVs, Xavier Arzalluz, on the other hand, brought 80,000
more votes to the bargaining table, allowing him to argue that
"the more disparate the matrimony, the greater the dowry."
Consequently, the PNV could expect to strengthen its hand even
more in the new government.
Nonetheless, it was clear from Lehendakari Ardanza's comments that his intent was to
govern from as broad and representative and integrated a political base
as possible, and that it was his intent to consolidate the
nationalists' gains while maintaining an open vista towards the
future-and Europe. Ardanza
has earned a reputation as an efficient administrator, as a
conciliatory politician who has been able to bridge differences with
others, and as a well-respected man who was able to overcome his
initial gray image.
The PNV began to meet with the other parties immediately after the election
and announced its intention of creating a government by Christmas.
And yet Christmas came and went without the announcement of a
new government. So, too, did the
rains of January, and nearly all of February. Finally, after hundreds
of hours of negotiations among all of
the potential coalition groups, the new government was announced.
It would represent an offering to the Basque nationalists and a
challenge to Madrid. The parties
which will form the new Basque government are PNV, EA and EE.
We had ended our analysis of the election of 1986 noting its ironies.
Basque nationalism had never been stronger, nor had its
divisiveness been more evident. The
overall result may alternatively have been viewed as evidence of
political vitality, or as weakness and hence reason for solace to the
opponents of Basque autonomy.
Four years later it is clear that the nationalist family is not only
stronger than ever, but that its individual members are demonstrating
the ability to live and work together under one roof with considerable
harmony. It seems likely that
the Basque Country will continue to lose much of the conflictiveness
that has marked it in the past and that political negotiation and legal
processes will be the avenues pursued for the resolution of conflict.
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