The PNV faces decisive days. On January 20, the San Sebastian holiday, the internal double-round process to elect the new Euzkadi Buru Batzar (EBB) formally begins. Andoni Ortuzar (Sanfuentes, 1962) has not yet made public the decision as to whether he will run for a fourth term or if, on the contrary, he will make way for new leadership. If so, Aitor Esteban, spokesperson in Congress and with good public projection, has circulated in the party as a quiet replacement alternative. But still everything is just rumors and speculation.
Ortuzar took charge of the main Basque party exactly twelve years ago, on January 12, 2013. Days had passed since Iñigo Urkullu, with whom he shares a generation, had installed himself as lehendakari in Ajuria Enea and gave up his chair in a two-headed party to his friend, as had previously happened with the management of Bizkaia, for example. At the end of 2023, however, the party decided that Urkullu was no longer going to be a candidate. They opted for Imanol Pradales, which was precisely ratified on San Sebastian Day 2024. Among the arguments put forward by Ortuzar was the generational one, that it was time to give way to new leadership for two or three terms. The relationship between Ortuzar and Urkullu was never the same despite the fact that, being two completely different personalities, they had generated a well-oiled tandem that gave the PNV its highest levels of institutional power since the split of EA in 1986.
The election process of the Euzkadi Buru Batzar, in reality, is a continuity of the renewal in the five territorial areas of the PNV, those of Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Navarra and Iparralde, completed in November. Only in the Navarrese case has there been more of the same: Unai Hualde is still in office. In Álava, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia the representatives of that generation of around 60 years old have left. No exceptions. José Antonio Suso did it, Joseba Egibar did it—in this case after four decades of control of the Guipuzcoan apparatus—and Itxaso Atutxa did it. These results can be used for one thing and the other: either to show that the executive branch has been sufficiently renewed, since all these territorial leaders also have a seat in the national leadership, or to show that Ortuzar’s path is also the of the exit. Iñigo Ansola, the new leader of the most powerful organization, that of Bizkaia, has been cryptic on Radio Euskadi: “Inside or out, [Ortuzar] It is a value to take into account today and tomorrow.”
In this territorial renewal, the critical voices that have been brewing in the PNV in recent years already emerged. Pradales’ operation went well, with a tie in seats with EH Bildu and a victory in votes after some polls that predicted a defeat against Pello Otxandiano. Furthermore, once the coalition with the PSE-EE has been reissued, it has an absolute majority in the Basque Parliament. Voices from both parties often repeat that few places in Spain and even in Europe are more stable than Euskadi. However, in the 2023 general elections the PSE-EE won. And in the European elections, EH Bildu did it, followed again by the socialists. For the first time in more than fifty elections of all kinds in Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, the PNV came third. In the municipal and regional elections of 2023 there were also some warning signs. In Vitoria he fell from first to fourth force, for example. In Gipuzkoa they govern, but in a minority and after losing to EH Bildu; Nationalists and socialists have relied on the PP for the investiture and the budgets. Some municipalities with cases of corruption or complaints of irregularities, such as Zambrana in Álava, Alonsotegi in Bizkaia or Hondarribia in Gipuzkoa, stopped being ‘jeltzales’ fiefdoms.
The analysis at the PNV headquarters is that there are not so much transfers of votes to other parties as punishment abstentionism. That is to say, it would be about remobilizing the usual voter to recover the lost space. However, the critical candidacies, particularly in Bizkaia, also warned that the party had incurred vices such as clientelism, the non-participation of its bases or a certain endogamy in appointments and distribution of positions.
The party itself has given nature, to a certain extent, to some of these reflections. He did it a couple of years ago, when in an internal document he admitted having to combat a certain image of “cronyism.” Now, in the presentations that will be debated in the internal process while the new ‘burukides’ are elected, there are also internal messages in line with reactivating the organization, to the point of demanding to have the ‘cleaner’ batzokis’, the political headquarters of towns and cities that are also usually bars and meeting points.
The party, officially, is hermetic about Ortuzar’s decision. What’s more, the president of the party has been complaining about the leaks and the media since the crisis over Urkullu’s replacement, whom he accuses of wanting to interfere in the internal life of a sovereign organization. The presentations also advocate reflecting on the concatenation of mandates, but incompatibilities are easily ‘removable’ in the PNV. Hualde, for example, is both president of the party and of the Parliament in Navarra. That, in principle, would not be a problem. It is more a question of Ortuzar’s will, although strictly speaking there are no planks and in the voting it is the bases that propose names in the first round. Those who have won in at least three ‘batzokis’ or local assemblies go to the second and final round of voting. In the territorial process, it is something that half a dozen non-governmental candidates achieved, although only David Salinas-Armendariz and especially Gorka Urtaran chose to compete against the apparatus in their respective organizations, Bizkaia and Álava, respectively. What’s more, it could happen that Ortuzar would announce that he is not continuing and that the bases would propose him again. Last year there were some threats to re-introduce Urkullu against Pradales, for example.
Without anything official, Esteban’s name has been considered as an alternative. In his favor, his long career and political experience. Also that his wife, Atutxa, is no longer at the top of the party. On the contrary, he is exactly the same age as Ortuzar – in fact he is 22 days older. And that would force a very important gap for the PNV to be plugged in a key institution, Congress. Esteban is well recognized as a speaker, but he has also accumulated three years as a negotiator and few have as many telephone numbers of senior State officials in their agenda. “The well-known faces are in the pools,” is the most Esteban has said about this hypothesis. Urkullu, for his part, has conspired to remain neutral until the end of the process.
In addition to the presidency, eight other EBB seats are also elected to complement the five already elected in each territorial area. Traditionally, there have been five from Biscay, two from Gipuzkoa and one from Alava. Right now there are already two vacancies. That of Nerea Melgosa from Alava, who left in 2023 to be a councilor with Urkullu first and then with Pradales, and that of María Eugenia Arrizabalaga, who is still in the EBB but now as president of Gipuzkoa. Another big unknown is what will happen to the all-powerful head of Organization and contemporary of Ortuzar, Urkullu and Esteban, Joseba Aurrekoetxea. Through his hands, although he is unknown in the eyes of the general public, everything goes from campaigns to appointments, including major affairs and state negotiations. The other five current ‘burukides’ are Mireia Zarate (secretary), Koldo Mediavilla (institutional manager), Ana Ester Furundarena (education), Mikel Burzako (international) and Xabier Barandiaran (studies and prospecting).
EH Bildu and PSE-EE are also immersed in their congressional processes at the start of 2025, although there the cards are already on the table. In the Abertzale coalition, Arnaldo Otegi will return to the front, who is even older than Ortuzar and who already had responsibilities in the brands prior to this new formation that brings together Sortu, EA, Alternatiba and independents. And in the PSE-EE Eneko Andueza has had no rival and there have not even been primaries. In his case, he took office in 2021.
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