PNV and Bildu start this Thursday "a close" campaign in Vitoria, PSE, PP and Podemos in Bilbao and Sumar in San Sebastián

Pedro Sánchez, Feijóo, Yolanda Díaz and Irene Montero will be fully involved in supporting their respective parties in the electoral contest

BILBAO, 4 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

PNV and EH Bildu start this Thursday in Vitoria "a close" campaign for the elections to the Basque Parliament on April 21 with their new candidates for lehendakari, Imanol Pradales and Pello Otxandiano, respectively, who will press their support among citizens for the first time Basque.

For their part, PSE, PP and Elkarrekin Podemos will hold their first event of the electoral contest in Bilbao, and Sumar in San Sebastián. Its top state representatives will be fully involved in this Basque campaign, in which the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez; the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo; the coordinator of Sumar and third vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, and the former minister and head of the list for the Europeans of the purple formation, Irene Montero, among others, repeat at various rallies of their respective parties.

All the Basque parties will strive to mobilize the electorate in elections polarized between the vote for the PNV and EH Bildu, in which the formation headed by Otxandiano sees itself with the possibility of 'surprising' the Jeltzales, although the latter seem to have slowed down the downward trend that they experienced in the last electoral processes, according to the latest polls.

Despite the fact that all the polls show a large increase in seats for the sovereignist party, it does not seem like an easy task for it to be able to snatch first place from the PNV. The undecided would be, as the polls reflect, the key to tipping the balance in these elections.

The PNV, which will begin its campaign with a massive event in the emblematic Plaza de la Virgen Blanca in Vitoria on Thursday at 9:00 p.m., will seek the "maximum mobilization" of its electorate, considering that what has penalized it in the last elections has been that his voters have stayed at home.

Pradales and the rest of the Jeltzales leaders have explained "what is at stake" in Euskadi: the model of "growth in well-being, progress, and progress in self-government and sovereignty", also with "contracted management", by their hand; or EH Bildu's model of "uncertainty, control, intervention and imposition" which, in his opinion, has "a hidden agenda" that will only come to light after April 21 if he gains power.

For this reason, they will call on the Basques to "endorse the social majority" of the PNV to "win the elections", without trusting that the PSE-EE will support a Government with the jeltzales, due to Sánchez's "changes of opinion".

EH Bildu holds its first event in this electoral contest also in the capital of Álava, specifically in the Plaza Santa Bárbara, at 8:30 p.m., where the general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, will speak alongside Pello Otxandiano and other candidates. The sovereigntist formation, which had never come so close in electoral results to the PNV, believes that these elections can be decisive in completing "the change of cycle" that it advocates.

Its candidate for lehendakari, who has proposed in the pre-campaign that the most voted force govern and that governments be formed "with purpose", not for "partisan interests", has advocated for agreements with the PNV on sovereignty matters and with the PSE-EE on social issues, also open to other formations of the confederal left (Vamos and Sumar).

For its part, the PSE-EE, which hopes to be "the key" to the formation of the new Basque Government and the policies that will be promoted in the next four years in Euskadi, will kick off in Bilbao, at 6:30 p.m. , in an event at the Zorrozaurre Terminal, in which his candidate for Lehendakaritza, Eneko Andueza, will be supported by the first vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero.

On Friday, the first formal day of the campaign, former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will support him with his presence at a rally in Irun, and on Saturday the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will do so in Vitoria.

The PP candidate, Javier de Andrés, has also chosen the Biscayan capital as the scene of his first act in this electoral race, who, although that afternoon will not be able to count on the accompaniment of the party's national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a the day later, on April 5, in an event that will be held at 8:00 p.m. in the Plaza España in Vitoria. In these elections, the Popular Party will try to reduce the difference they maintain with the Socialists.

At the start of the Elkarrekin Podemos-Alianza Verde campaign, at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, at 6:00 p.m., the former minister and candidate of the purple party for the European elections, Irene Montero, and the former deputy Juantxo López de Uralde, will participate. who will support the candidate for lehendakari of Elkarrekin Podemos, Miren Gorrotxategi, until now parliamentary spokesperson for this coalition.

Sumar, a coalition made up of Sumar Mugimendua, Ezker Anitza-IU, Equo Berdeak and Más Euskadi-Euskadi Eraiki, is the only political force that has chosen San Sebastián to start its campaign, with Alba García as candidate for lehendakari. It will do so at 8:00 p.m. at the Aquarium in the capital of Gipuzkoa.

None of the main state leaders of Sumar will participate in this event, although they will appear in the following days. On the 5th, the spokesperson in Congress and president of Más País, Iñigo Errejón, will join García at a rally in Plaza Unamuno in Bilbao, and on Saturday the 6th the leader of Sumar and third vice president, Yolanda Díaz, will be with the Basque candidates at noon at the Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Díaz will return to Euskadi on April 13 to speak at an event at the BEC in Barakaldo and a day later Minister Sira Rego will participate in a rally in Eibar. The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, is expected to close the electoral contest.