The PNV once again acted as the PNV in Congress. In the vote to ask Spain to recognize the opposition Edmundo González Urrutia as president of Venezuela, the five nationalist deputies acquired the importance they have had at other times in the recent history of Spanish politics and were decisive. They joined the PP initiative and led to the defeat of the government of Pedro Sánchez. The Basque party operated with other keys compared to the rest of the formations of the so-called investiture bloc. “Venezuela does not like nuances and the PNV is clear that it will face repression, dictatorship, obscurantism and, therefore, Nicolas Maduro. And we cannot give even one centimeter to Maduro,” said spokesman Aitor Esteban. In recent weeks, Venezuela has also been used as a weapon against its great political rival, EH Bildu, who defends the results declared official in the elections held at the end of July. But why is the PNV so belligerent about the situation in that country?
“Nobody can be surprised by this. It is not knowing the history of the PNV, which for 18 years has had a Venezuelan spokesperson in Madrid,” jokes Iñaki Anasagasti, a former deputy and former senator born in Caracas in 1948 and who lived in Venezuela until 1975, the year of the death of the dictator Francisco Franco.
“The Palestine issue must of course be denounced. But the Basques of Venezuela have lost absolutely everything,” adds Anasagasti, who remembers the second name of the opposition leader – now in Spain – or the fact that the grandfather of María Corina Machado, the real leader of the opposition, had that last name. Boris Izaguirre, one of the best-known Venezuelans in Spain for years, also has Basque origins.
The PNV announced, shortly after the end of the vote in Spain, that it would take the issue to Europe. The only nationalist MEP, Oihane Agirregoitia, proposed through her group (Renew, the European Liberals) a resolution to recognize González Urrutia as president and denounce “the seriousness of the political situation in the country.” “We are deeply concerned about the serious violations of human rights in the country. As is well known, the international community has denounced the lack of transparency and veracity of the elections. There is no official report on the results and we fear that there never will be,” said Agirregoitia.
During the colonial period, the Royal Guipúzcoa Company of Caracas had great economic weight in what is now Venezuela in the service of the Spanish Crown. Later, during the civil war, the nascent autonomous government of Euzkadi negotiated with that country a way out for several hundred families, like that of Anasagasti. They demanded Catholic and educated immigration there and 700 nationalist or nationalist families, according to Anasagasti’s calculations, left in boats. “It was a very political group, with civil servants and gudaris. The exile of the PNV took place largely in Venezuela while the republican ended up in Mexico. The Basque center of Caracas is by far the best in all of America,” he explains.
“Radio Euzkadi” from Caracas
Radio Euzkadi was also created clandestinely from Venezuela during the dictatorship, a station promoted by EGI, the youth academy of the PNV and from which the current regional public radio takes its name. Another historic Basque politician, the socialist “Txiki” Benegas, whose family was “jeltzale”, was also born in Caracas in 1948. Gregorio Ordóñez, leader of the PP assassinated by ETA, was also of Venezuelan origin, as was his sister Consuelo Ordóñez. , president of Covite.
The PNV has five territorial organizations for Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Navarra and Iparralde, known in French as PNB. But it also has “extraterritorial” organizations outside the Basque sphere. There are some in Madrid or Argentina, but of course also in Venezuela. Although the party has not provided official data, it is estimated that it currently has around thirty members, taking into account that the oldest have died and many have returned to the new democratic Spain since 1975. The PNV of Venezuela has a seat in the National Assembly – its spokesperson is Anasagasti himself, although formally he is already affiliated with Bilbao – and they parade in the Alderdi Eguna – the party whose next edition is imminent – like the rest of the “batzokis”.
Anasagasti says that in the first municipal elections in Bilbao after Franco, his “experience” gained in Venezuela with the Christian Democrat Luis Herrera Campíns, who later became president, helped him win over the socialists, who then had much more strength in the city. Currently, the PNV “maintains a very close relationship” with Venezuelans arriving in Spain. For example, the consulate in Bilbao already has 25,000, although this figure also includes data from La Rioja or Cantabria. Its very close relationship with the NGO Tierra de Gracia is not hidden, which facilitates the procedures for those arriving in Bilbao and other towns in the Basque Country, which organizes deliveries of children’s toys at Christmas and other events and which has led the protests against Maduro in recent weeks. The PNV has a “burukide” in the Euzkadi Buru Batzar specializing in international relations, Mikel Burzako, who has followed this issue very closely and who also has direct contacts with the Venezuelan opposition. The parliamentarian Mikel Arruabarrena, for personal reasons, is also very active in this regard. The new Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, has sent messages of support to the opposition and criticism of Maduro and took the opportunity to question EH Bildu to “promote” a Bolivarian model that he does not want for Euskadi.
Already in 2019, the PNV was extremely significant in relation to Venezuela. It supported Juan Guaidó as “president in charge”, although it is clear that this operation did not take place. Its “ambassador” in Spain was received with all the honors by the party but also by the then Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, and by the mayor of Bilbao, Juan María Aburto, among other institutional positions. The party president, Andoni Ortuzar, had a video call with Guaidó, after which he urged Sánchez to “lead within the European Union the international efforts to promote the rule of law and restore democracy through democratic, free and fair elections.” Venezuela when the circumstances arise.
Like the PP against the PSOE, the PNV also habitually introduces Venezuela into the political dialectic against EH Bildu. The current deputy general of Gipuzkoa, Eider Mendoza, said in an interview with this newspaper before the regional elections of 2023 that the economic model of the nationalist left was that of Maduro. In 2018, surrounded by reports of irregularities in medical competitions, the then Minister of Health, Jon Darpón, used this joker against the opposition. “We are not in Venezuela. In a state of law, the accusations must be proven,” he said about a case that led him to resign a few months later.
In any case, the vote on Venezuela has also allowed the PNV to establish a differentiated profile with respect to the left-wing bloc of the Cortes Generales. Faced with a succession of poor electoral results – in the European elections in particular, it fell for the first time in its history to third place in Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa and fell to seventh in Navarre – internal critical voices are demanding a differentiation of Sánchez on certain issues. Just a few weeks ago, the PP disgraced the PNV for not supporting it in its search for explanations from the Executive regarding Venezuela. The “clumsy that you are clumsy” that Esteban himself wrote to Miguel Tellado in X earned him headlines.
Now, the PP has accepted with satisfaction the position of the nationalists even if the spokesperson in Euskadi, Laura Garrido, does not believe that this represents a turning point and continues to see those of Ortuzar, Esteban and Pradales aligned with the Sánchez bloc in Congress. “They have become denatured. It is good that you have reflected on certain things. I am happy, without a doubt. But every time Sánchez has needed the PNV, it has been there. “It seems to be an isolated vote,” explained Garrido on behalf of a PP that remains wounded since in 2018, the PNV played the role of the PNV in Congress and decided that it was going to support the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy.
