The election of Pello Otxandiano as a candidate for lehendakari by EH Bildu for the next Basque elections in 2024, in the absence of support from the militancy, breaks with the transitory character that his predecessors, Laura Mintegi, in 2012, and Maialen Iriarte, have had. in 2016 and 2010. Both were substitutes for Arnaldo Otegi when he unsuccessfully tried to break his judicial disqualification as an electoral candidate. The candidacy of Otxandiano, 40 years old, represents a generational renewal and a long-term commitment in EH-Bildu that runs parallel to the announcement of Otegi, 65 years old, to limit himself to coordinating the coalition with the insinuation that in two years he will not renew and will leave the forefront of politics. Both make up a bicephaly, just like the PNV, with an institutional candidate on the rise and a party leader on the way out.
Otxandiano, unanimously elected in the leadership of EH-Bildu, breaks with the traditional profile of a left-wing candidate abertzale. He is a doctor in Telecommunications Engineering, a university professor who did his thesis at the University of Mondragón and at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (Sweden), interested in studying public policies in the Scandinavian countries. He has combined his profession with his dedication to the development of the EH Bildu program as the brain of his economic strategy, which has allowed him to strengthen relations with the Basque union, economic and social media to whom he has explained his proposals. related to public policies.
At the same time, he maintains a strong political commitment to EH Bildu, where he ran as a councilor in his town, Otxandio (Bizkaia), the same year the coalition was formed, 2011. He rose to management when he returned from Sweden. His nationalist roots are family: his great-grandfather and two maternal grandparents were victims of the bombings of the Condor Legion during the Civil War in Euskadi. Hence, Otegi defines Otxandiano as “solvent, committed, with soul and a commitment to the medium and long term.”
The Basque Sociometer survey, published on December 1, indicates that EH Bildu is only four seats behind the PNV when in the 2020 elections the difference was 10 seats. With Otxandiano's profile, EH Bildu sends a message for the future, which goes beyond the next Basque elections. It intends to open itself to new social sectors and bet on more than one term with the clear intention that Otxandiano be lehendakari. But EH Bildu's effort to rejuvenate and modernize its image, parallel to an evolution towards democratic positions and respect for plurality, needs to overcome an important obstacle: the self-critical recognition of its past complicity with ETA by its hard core, Sortu. The candidate for lehendakari for the PSE, Eneko Andueza, recalled this a few days ago, without whose help it will not be possible for EH Bildu to enter Ajuria Enea. This recognition is necessary, above all, to clarify to new generations that violence cannot serve to achieve political objectives, especially in a democracy.
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