SPAIN: BASQUE REGIONAL ELECTIONS SET FOR MARCH 1

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MADRID 000139 SIPDIS PASS TO ELAINE SAMSON AND STACIE ZERDECKI AT EUR/WE, JANICE BELL AT INR E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/11/2019 TAGS: PGOV PTER SP SUBJECT: SPAIN: BASQUE REGIONAL ELECTIONS SET FOR MARCH 1 REF: A. 08 MADRID 865 ¶B. 05 MADRID 433 ¶C. 08 MADRID 1231 ¶D. 09 MADRID 97 MADRID 00000139 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: Acting DCM William Duncan for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Autonomous Community of the Basque Country's March 1 election will be closely-contested and will determine whether the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) continues its nearly 30 years in office or the candidate from the Basque Socialist Party (PSE, the Basque wing of Spanish President Zapatero's Spanish Socialist Workers Party) becomes the first non-PNV leader of the Basque region since the return of democracy. Recent polling shows a statistical tie in public support for the PNV and the PSE. The Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) domestic terrorist group - whose political arm has been outlawed and whose supporters will have no legal outlet for their political views - is likely to attempt an attack in the run-up to the election. The official campaign will begin on February 13 and will end on the 27th. To some extent, the vote is likely to be seen as a barometer for national sentiment regarding the performance of the Zapatero Administration. END SUMMARY. //OVERVIEW OF BASQUE POLITICS// ¶2. (SBU) On January 2 Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the president or "lehendakari" of the Basque Country, whose post is equivalent to that of a U.S. Governor, announced the long-awaited date for the regional election will be March 1, the same date as Galicia's regional election. He dissolved the Basque parliament on January 5 and the official campaign will be February 23-27. Most political observers suggest Ibarretxe set the election date of March 1 - earlier than had been predicted - in an attempt to catch the PNV's competitors off guard, giving them less time to get organized and also forcing the national leaders of the Socialist and Popular Parties to divide their time between Galicia and the Basque Country. However, some critics also suggest that the move reflects electoral weakness on the part of the PNV in that Ibarretxe sacrificed the symbolic uniqueness of the Basques by scheduling the region's election on the same date as another region's. ¶3. (SBU) The Basque Country is notable for the highly fractured political views among its relatively small electorate. (There were 1.2 million registered voters in the 2005 election.) In the recently dissolved legislature, half a dozen political parties were represented in the regional parliament, which has 75 seats. Basque politics features a double-axis of the traditional left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum overlaid with a second axis of Basque nationalism versus Spanish nationalism. Furthermore, among Basque nationalists, there are those who support political violence and those who do not. //LEADING PARTIES' CAMPAIGN PLATFORMS// ¶4. (SBU) The Basque Country's three main political parties are the PNV, the PSE, and the Popular Party (PP). Representatives of each of these parties have described to POLOFF their distinct campaign strategies. This year's election also features an unusual twist: the leaders of the only two parties with a realistic chance of becoming lehendakari - Ibarretxe and PSE leader Patxi Lopez - were both co-defendants in a short-lived trial that began on January 8 and was shelved on January 12. Over the objections of Basque prosecutors, two conservative civic groups - in the prosecutorial equivalent of a citizen's arrest - brought the two political leaders and a handful of others to court on charges of civil disobedience for meeting with members of Batasuna, ETA's outlawed political wing, during the terrorist group's 2006-07 ceasefire. The Basque High Court shelved - but did not dismiss - the case on the grounds that there was "no legitimate plaintiff," a ruling which is being appealed. Ibarretxe had hoped the trial would continue and absolve him of his activities; political observers suspect the PNV also wanted to use the trial as a pre-electoral ploy to play the Basque victim of the Spanish state. ¶5. (C) PNV: Ibarretxe, who has been lehendakari since 1999, is seeking his fourth mandate as the PNV's candidate. His party, which espouses peaceful Basque nationalism, has been in power in the regional capital of Vitoria as either the majority or minority partner in every government since 1980 and has always held the lehendakari position, which has existed - albeit in exile during the Franco dictatorship - since the 1930s. During the most recent legislature, the PNV MADRID 00000139 002.2 OF 004 led a tripartite government, backed by Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) and the Basque United Left - The Greens (EB-IU). The most high profile initiative of the most recent PNV-led legislature was the ongoing effort to implement the Ibarretxe Plan, which envisions a "free association agreement" for the Basque Region with Spain (ref a). In September 2008, the Spanish Supreme Court declared Ibarretxe's intent to hold a non-binding plebiscite in the Basque Country on the Ibarretxe Plan - first unveiled in 2003 but roundly voted down by the Spanish national parliament in 2005 (ref b) - was unconstitutional. The PNV describes the plebiscite as a democratic act to consult the will of the people while critics have called it a secessionist referendum. PNV officials privately acknowledge that the election will be a closely fought race and have told POLOFF that the party plans to base their campaign on the electorate's perceived desire for greater recognition of and rights for the Basque identity and people. ¶6. (C) PSE: The Socialists believe that the PNV is a spent force after nearly 30 years in government and sense a historical opportunity for change by making Lopez the first non-PNV lehendakari. The PSE told POLOFF that the party senses a structural transformation of the Basque Region that has been taking place over time and highlight that voter support for the PSE has been on the increase in recent years. The PSE says that the key issues in the campaign will be the Basque identity, the denied plebiscite, and the PNV's management of the region in recent years. PSE officials have suggested to POLOFF that the PSE hopes to form a minority - rather than a coalition - government, as Zapatero did in Madrid following the 2004 and 2008 national elections. ¶7. (C) PP: The center-right, Spanish nationalist PP is the primary opposition party in the national parliament, but only the third largest political force in the Basque Country. The party has no realistic chance of winning the election, but hopes at best to be a junior partner in the resulting government, although they say they will not give any blanks checks for their support and could not support another Ibarretxe-led PNV government. Basque PP officials have told POLOFF that the party will run its campaign on "defending liberties" on such topics as combating ETA, the freedom to choose the language (Castilian Spanish or Basque) that schools use to teach voters' children, and on combating the economic crisis. The PP - which says it will be targeting the middle class, families, professionals, and small and medium business owners - says it enjoys credibility with these voters on these issues. The PP officials told POLOFF, "The more votes we receive, the more we can guarantee these freedoms." //THE ETA FACTOR// ¶8. (SBU) With Batasuna banned since 2003, ETA and its radical "patriotic left" supporters - who composed roughly 13 percent of the electorate in the 2005 election, although that figure may decrease for the 2009 election - are struggling to find a way to participate legally in the election. A series of "front" parties have been banned in recent months for having links to ETA. One of them, the Communist Party of the Basque Homelands, received 150,000 votes and won nine seats in the 2005 election. The GOS appears determined to make the upcoming election the first time that the ETA-aligned "patriotic left" does not participate in a Basque election. GOS security forces suspect that ETA will retaliate by trying to commit a high-profile terrorist attack and that voters sympathetic to ETA will follow ETA's instructions by abstaining from the vote or casting a null ballot. If they do vote, they are seen as most likely to support the PNV and the EB-IU. ¶9. (C) Joaquin Collado Callau, an adviser to GOS Deputy Interior Minister Antonio Camacho, on January 15 predicted to POLOFF that ETA will continue its attacks in the run-up to the election; an opinion unanimously shared among political observers and GOS officials consulted by POLOFF. In a video issued on January 30 to commemorate its 50th anniversary, ETA - despite being dramatically weakened nowadays - pledged to continue fighting to create an independent Basque state. Meanwhile, the Spanish media published a recently captured internal ETA document that more frankly admitted that Spanish and French security forces are "asphyxiating" the terrorist group in recent years. According to recent press reports, the GOS ended 2008 with a record-high 670 ETA members in jail, while France held 150 others. These reports also suggest that ETA only has two remaining cells and 55 members in its military wing and that GOS officials have identified another 4,000 people aged 18-35 years old who have MADRID 00000139 003.2 OF 004 participated in ETA-inspired street violence. ¶10. (C) Following the November 2008 detention of ETA's longtime military chief and number-one leader Txeroki (ref c) and the detention of Aitzol Iriondo, his successor as military leader, three weeks later, Jurdan Martitegi, age 28, is most often cited as ETA's latest military chief while political leadership reportedly is shared by veterans Juan Cruz Maiztegui Bengoa, age 63 and aka Alona or Pastor, and Jose Luis Eciolaza Galan, age 49 and aka Dienteputo. All three are considered "extremely radical" and supportive of continuing ETA's armed struggle. ¶11. (C) ETA already has begun to step up its pre-election violence. The group exploded a carbomb in Madrid on February 9, possibly in relation for the Spanish Supreme Court ruling on February 8 that Askatasuna and D3M were "front" parties for Batasuna, and would not be able to participate in the March 1 regional election. Authorities were able to clear the area before the explosion, following a warning call by ETA. The bomb exploded outside the offices of Ferrovial, a transportation and infrastructure company involved in building the high-speed train (AVE) ) a declared ETA target - in the Basque Country. The damage to the building and area is reportedly extensive. Spanish media note that this is the first ETA attack in Madrid since the 2006 airport bombing that broke the group's ceasefire declared earlier that year. Meanwhile, two incidents of "kale barroka" ) ETA-inspired street violence ) in the Basque Country on the night of February 6 caused more than $1 million in damages by dousing a commuter train and a city bus with flammable liquids. There were no injuries in any of these incidents. Prof. Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenca, an ETA and electoral politics expert at the Juan March Institute, told POLOFF on February 9 that while ETA normally causes fewer deaths in Basque regional elections than in national elections, the outlawing of all the ETA-aligned parties may cause ETA to decide to do something more radical and increase the number of deaths caused by its attacks. He added that he believes ETA still retains the ability to shape the course of the March 1 election through the severity of its attacks and its choice of victims. //PROSPECTIVE OUTCOMES// ¶12. (C) Public opinion polls indicate that PSE is on track to increase its representation from 18 seats in 2005 to 25-27 in 2009, giving it roughly as many as the PNV, which could loose up to three of the 29 seats obtained in 2005. The PP is expected to remain at roughly 15 seats. Pedro Caballero, a PNV member and the Basque Country's delegate to Madrid, told POLOFF on January 14 that the key to the election will be in closed-door, post-election negotiations in the weeks and possibly even months after the election, as the PNV and PSE seek how best to align with other parties to secure the backing of a majority - 38 of the 75 - of the seats for the investiture of the lehendakari. Media reports suggest four possible outcomes: I) The PNV will again attempt to form a Basque nationalist coalition, but is challenged to secure the numbers to return their tripartite government to power and may even fall short if they try to induce the lone expected delegate of the more radical Basque nationalist party, Aralar, to join a quadripartite government. II) Opinion polls suggest the public would like to see a PNV/PSE coalition take office, but the two parties would have to iron out who would be lehendakari, among other items. The PSE is not inclined to join forces under the polarizing Ibarretxe, but PNV moderates, such as party president Inigo Urkullu, may accept removing Ibarretxe as lehendakari to facilitate a PNV/PSE coalition. (COMMENT: In the 1986 election, the PSE won the most delegates and formed a coalition with the PNV, whom the PSE allowed to fill the lehendakari position. In 2009, however, all indications are that the PSE wants Lopez to assume the post if the PSE secures the most delegates. END COMMENT.) III) A PSE/PP coalition does not have much public support and the two parties' platforms do not have much in common beyond Spanish nationalism. IV) The PSE culd attempt to form a minority government, supported at its investiture by the PP, which would rather see the PSE in office than the PNV. //IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL-LEVEL POLITICS// ¶13. (C) COMMENT: The Basque election - together with those MADRID 00000139 004.2 OF 004 in Galicia and the June 7 vote for the European Parliament - is one of three that Spanish political observers will follow closely in 2009. Although there are numerous unique elements to Basque politics at play in the vote, the election will be seen in some respects as a barometer of the public's assessment of the performance of the Zapatero Administration, which has defended its handling of the Spanish economy, has exerted considerable energy in promoting the unity of the Spanish state, and has aggressively pursued ETA terrorists after the failure of peace talks in 2006. If the PNV forms another Basque nationalist government under Ibarretxe, he will likely continue his push - in one form or another - for an independent Basque Country freely associated with Spain and the EU, which will be an irritant for Zapatero and force him to divert his attention from his stated interest of focusing more on international issues during his second term (2008-12). If the PSE wins and secures Lopez as lehendakari, the election will be historic. However, having a PSE lehendarki will not necessarily solve Zapatero troubles in the Basque Country. As Catalan President Jose Montilla has shown, the regional Socialist leaders at times stand their ground against the central government, especially in matters of devolution and increased funding from Madrid. Zapatero also has stated that Lopez will enjoy a free hand in choosing his potential post-election partners, but Zapatero's minority government in Madrid is dependent on the PNV's caucus for support on key issues, such as passing its annual budget. A worse than expected result for the PP would put further pressure on Mariano Rajoy, the PP's national leader and the opposition leader in the Spanish parliament, who in 2008 installed a loyalist at the helm of the PP's Basque wing and is facing a renewed flare-up of unrest within the party over his leadership (ref d). END COMMENT. CHACON