Regional elections in the Basque Country in northeastern Spain this Sunday ended with a tie in the number of elected representatives between the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the independent EH Bild, according to official data.
Both parties elected 27 representatives each, although PNV had more votes than EH Bild (35.24% and 32.45%, respectively, with almost 99% of votes counted).
An absolute majority requires 38 seats in the regional parliament, so the key to power again lies with the Socialist Party (PSE-EE, regional organization of the Spanish Socialist Party, PSOE), which was already consolidated in the last legislature. Coalition in regional government led by PNV.
The Socialist Party, which received the third most votes in today's elections (14.2%), won 12 seats and guaranteed during the campaign that it would once again enter government contracts only with the PNV. .
Imanol Pratales, 49, who led the PNV candidacy, is to be the new 'Lehendagari', as the Basque regional government is called.
According to official data from today's elections, the Popular Party (PP, right) elected seven representatives and won 9.23% of the vote; Sommer (leftist) got one deputy and 3.34% of the vote and Vox (extreme right) got one deputy and 2.04% of the vote.
The Basque Parliament currently has 31 representatives from the PNV, 21 from EH Build, 10 from the Socialists, six from Podemos (extreme left), one from VOX and one from Citizens (liberal).
The center-right PNV has always been the party with the most votes in Basque regional elections, except for a three-year term between 2009 and 2012, when it has always headed the autonomous government.
This dominance was threatened for the first time in this election by the growth of EHBuild, a platform of left-wing libertarian parties integrating organizations derived from the former political arms of the ETA. group.
EH Bildu, which condemns violence with political motives in its laws, was born in 2012, after the end of ETA's activity and in the context of the financial crisis, taken from the beginning and consolidated in these 12 years. As a socially conscious party, identity issues or the independence of the Basque Country are secondary.
PNV and EH Bildu together have 70% of the vote today, and the next regional parliament will be the most nationalist in the history of the Basque Country, after a campaign focused, essentially, on socio-economic issues, which will happen equally , according to all opinion polls, the desire for independence among the Basques is at a historic low.