Far-left separatists, conservatives lead official polls in tight Basque election race

The far-left and separatist EH Bildu is polling ahead of other parties but remains very close to the conservative-nationalist PNV ahead of elections in the Basque Country on 21 April, a poll by the state-run Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) published on Wednesday reads.

EH Bildu party’s closest runner-up, the PNV, has governed the Basque Country almost continuously since the 1980s. The Basque Socialist Party (PSE-EE) and the two radical left parties, Sumar and Podemos, are predicted to get far fewer votes, coming in third, fourth and fifth, respectively, the poll reads.

EH-Bildu, which Spain’s Partido Popular (PP), the main opposition force in the national parliament in Madrid, and the far-right VOX party, the third force at the national level, describe as the political “heir” of the defunct terrorist group ETA, would obtain between 34.2% and 35.1% of the vote.

PNV, which is polling second, is predicted to receive between 32.6% and 33.5% of the vote, while predictions for PSE-EE and PP are 13.3-14.1% and 6.7-7%, respectively.

Just scraping ahead of the 3% threshold needed to have at least one seat in the regional parliament are Sumar, the junior coalition partner in the government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and Elkarrekin Podemos-AV (the Basque branch of the almost defunct left-wing Podemos party), as both are polling at 3.1-3.6% and 3.1 -3.2% of the vote, respectively.

Meanwhile, VOX may not even make it into the regional parliament, with the state-run poll predicting between 2.7% and 3% for the party.

In an earlier CIS poll, the state institute predicted a PNV win with 36.1% of the vote, giving it 30-31 seats in the 75-seat regional parliament, with EH Bildu close behind on 33% and 28-29 seats.

Most of the polls published so far have predicted EH Bildu and PNV with more or less the same number of votes, sometimes one overtaking the other and vice versa.

Despite EH-Bildu‘s good prospects, which have captured the sympathy of young voters in particular, analysts predict a repeat of the current PNV-PSE-EE coalition for another legislature.

In the coming weeks, Spain will experience an electoral marathon, with regional elections in the Basque Country on 21 April, regional elections in Catalonia on 12 May, and European elections on 9 June.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)

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