Friday, March 29

An impeccable democratic record

One of the central points of the anti-terrorist strategy of the Madrid and Ajuria Enea Pacts was to get ETA to abandon the armed struggle and for nationalism to participate in the Spanish political system like all other parties: with the word and the vote. .

Advocating a policy that was in the antipodes of the Constitution is perfectly constitutional. This is valid for nationalism abertzale exactly the same as for the other parties. Otherwise, it would be difficult for Vox to be registered in the Registry of Parties of the Ministry of the Interior.

The abandonment of the armed struggle by ETA was, consequently, a success for democracy, a success that would be complemented a few years later with the dissolution of the terrorist organization and with strict compliance with the decision to engage in politics exclusively peaceful.

The constitution of Bildu as a political party was the institutionalized expression of that decision. I was a privileged witness to this, because Iñigo Iruin came to Seville and I reviewed the text of the party’s Statutes with him before they were presented to the Party Registry of the Ministry of the Interior. I understood then and I continue to understand that ensuring that the Congress of Deputies is the most complete expression possible of the complexity of Spanish society is positive and that, to the extent that it can contribute to it, it should be done.

Unfortunately, in the televised broadcasts of the sessions of the Plenary of the Congress of Deputies, there is often a disconnection as the parties with the least parliamentary representation intervene and, consequently, the percentage of citizens who have been able to follow the interventions of the parliamentarians of Bildu is reduced. It is unfortunate that this is the case, because the interventions of the Bildu deputies stand out unequivocally for their quality and for their respect for the values ​​on which the Constitution is based.

If the parties have to be judged by the way they act in the institutions and in society, there is nothing to reproach Bildu for, unlike what happens with others, who swear almost permanently to the Constitution in vain.

Bildu’s performance since its constitution as a party is democratically impeccable. Hopefully the parties of the Spanish right could accredit a similar performance.

This execution of Bildu, uninterrupted since its inclusion in the Registry of Parties of the Ministry of the Interior, justifies not only in terms of legality, but also legitimacy, the electoral lists with which it contests the 28M elections.

The fact that there are 44 candidates on these lists who have been convicted of belonging to ETA (seven of them for blood crimes) is not an argument against Bildu’s democratic record, quite the contrary. What the presence of these 44 candidates conclusively proves is that even those who were active in ETA and committed crimes, after having served the sentences imposed and having passed the time for which they were disqualified, expressly confirm the resignation of their way of doing politics in the past and unequivocally bet on the peaceful and democratic path.

It is not Spanish democracy that rectifies the decision of the Provincial Electoral Boards to approve the proclamation of Bildu’s candidacies with those 44 candidates, but those who rectify are those who in the past carried out politics with guns and now expressly renounce their do it. Is there any greater recognition of the strength of Spanish democracy than the participation of these 44 candidates in the elections on the 28th?



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