After weeks of waiting the Basque regional election has finally come and gone. With the elections came a couple of bomb scares but nothing to bad. Before polls even opened a 24 year-old suspected member of ETA who was believed to have been planning an attack was arrested. The alleged member had “bomb making equipment” in his apartment in Hernani, Spain, according to a BBC news correspondent. This comes after ETA on Friday told its supporters to vote blank on the ballets to make a statement without causing any injuries to anyone, claming these elections are “anti-democratic.”
With the recession hitting Spain the hardest out of all the European countries with an unemployment rate of 14% these elections seem even more important for Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) won the election gaining 30 seats of the possible 75 but this means current Basque Government President , José Ibarretxe, is not guaranteed re-election since the majority of the seats are not the Nationalist’s Party. This could possibly mean a change of leader in the Basque region making it harder for secession.
Pre-election polls predicted that the majority of the Basque region was leaning towards Zapatero and his Socailist Party. But after seeing the results it seems that Basques could start becoming more supportive to the Nationalist Party and to becoming it’s own nation. The Basque region has always been one of the more profitable regions in Spain and with unemployment rates so high and no signs of getting better this could be another reason to secced. In a BBC article,
BBC,Miren Azkarate , a Basque Nationalist spokeswoman, said, “What kind of unemployment do people prefer, 8%, as we have here, or 14%, as they have in Madrid?”
With the recession hitting Spain the hardest out of all the European countries with an unemployment rate of 14% these elections seem even more important for Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) won the election gaining 30 seats of the possible 75 but this means current Basque Government President , José Ibarretxe, is not guaranteed re-election since the majority of the seats are not the Nationalist’s Party. This could possibly mean a change of leader in the Basque region making it harder for secession.
Pre-election polls predicted that the majority of the Basque region was leaning towards Zapatero and his Socailist Party. But after seeing the results it seems that Basques could start becoming more supportive to the Nationalist Party and to becoming it’s own nation. The Basque region has always been one of the more profitable regions in Spain and with unemployment rates so high and no signs of getting better this could be another reason to secced. In a BBC article,
So with elections ending in a mixed result for both Zapatero and ETA what happens now? Will these elections really be that important in the uniting or seceding of the Basque Country? We will see what both parties reactions will be soon enough, and as for the elections only time will tell.
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