Basque Country could get first pro-Spanish government

In the recent regional elections in the Basque Country, nationalist parties won the most votes, but failed to secure a majority in parliament. While the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and other smaller nationalist groups Eusko Alkartasuna, Aralar and Ezker Batua won 37 seats, the socialists, the conservative Popular Party, and the smaller Union, Progress and Democracy Party (UPD) together took 38, one more than their rivals. What is widely expected now is that the pro-Spanish parties will form an alliance, excluding the nationalists from power, and that the Basque representative of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) Patxi Lopez will become the new Lehendakari.

Though undoubtedly the will of the people and the outcome of a democratic election should always be respected, the question is, just how democratic was the election? It has been alleged that if the approximately 1000,000 null votes in favour of the two banned leftist pro-independence parties, Askatasuna and Democracy Three Million (D3M), had been taken into account, then the nationalists would have gained the majority.

Furthermore, with the moderate PNV no longer the ruling party in parliament, and the elections deemed by the left pro-independence to be undemocratic, some are concerned that this could now give ETA a justification to continue its military campaign and to claim itself to be a more powerful voice for the Basque struggle.