🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Jon Patrick wrote:

(cut)
> "Thus, the signatory parties to the Lizarra Agreement have got 746 000
> votes -those who excluded themselves from this settlement only 483 000- and
> they have got 43 seats as opposed to 32 seats of those who
> did not sign the agreement."

As several people already explained, the current electoral system in
Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa grants 25 seats to each province.
Why EAJ, the PSOE and the UCD agreed to this system?  Maybe because
the Moncloa statute, which benefitted EAJ by joining the three
provinces under its particular political influence, was
negotiated in Madrid between EAJ and the left-right alliance
that carried out the political "reform" in Spain, and
there is no such thing as `free lunch'.

There are two other systems that can balance the representation regarding
the number of voters: the D'Hont Law and the system that grants each
province a representation in proportion with its population.

I'm not too sure if any of these two systems would have changed much the
results of the 25-O elections.  If the D'Hont Law is applied, the results
would favor EAJ which would get 22 seats, and Spanish IU would get 4.
This system would not affect the Basque parties HB and EA which would
maintain the same number of seats, but the Spanish PP and PSE would lose 1
seat each.

If each province is granted a seat in proportion with its population,
Araba would get 10, Bizkaia, 41, and Gipuzkoa 24.   This undoubtedly would
benefit EAJ which would get 23 seats, and although the Spanish PP is the
second political force in Bizkaia, it would maintain the same number of
seats. HB would get 13, one less; the PSE would get the same, 14; EA would
lose one.  IU instead would get one more, 3.  Pro-Spain UA would be the
big loser with 1 seat.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

>
> This works out at 60.6% of the votes and 57.3% of the seats. This discrepancy
> seems a little large to me. Can anyone give me a description of the electoral
> system that explains the discrepancy?
>
> Those questions aside it seems the newsletter is saying 100,000+ people left
> the PSOE & IU parties to support PNV and EH (aka HB). That seems to be pretty
> significant and indicates the majority of people of people are (may be) in
> favour of an independent state. What are your readings of these figures?

I personnally don't think that most EAJ voters are for an independent
Basque state.  Most HB voters  probably do.   But I think the vote for EAJ
and HB this time meant to support the Lizarra agreement, and the truce,

I think it must be explained that the Lizarra Declaration is an agreement
for multilateral talks with everybody in the conflict.  If you read the LD
you will notice it is carefully worded so it can draw more support.
In this sense, the agreement is a success.  Another thing is what
motivated each signatory to back the agreement.

Most people in EH wanted a truce and ETA knows it. Most people also know
that the ETA infrastructure and HB have been badly hurt by the fascists in
Madrid and their allies, and not exactly by legal means. Dispersion of the
prisoners is illegal, torture is illegal, expulsion is illegal, and
jailing all the HB leaders is not officially illegal because a judge
did it but his grounds are questionable to say the least.  Closing Egin
and arresting a bunch of people so they can better look for the "evidence"
raises a lot of legal questions but they got away with it.

A truce regardless of its motives would be (and it was) a good move by ETA
very much wanted by most people, and the political parties except PP and
PSE did not want to be left out of a nationalist agreement that would
get it.  This goes for Spanish IU which is hard to believe it supports a
Basque state but to oppose peace talks (or even a referendum on SD)
when most Basques want it would be too risky, and specially for EAJ which
wants to control and lead any political moves.  Remember EAJ boycotted
talks in Algeria.

This time EAJ acted smart because it knew it had to be inside the Lizarra
agreement in order to try to control it.  You can see EAJ is already
trying: Ardanza says is better to have a peace process with political
debate and push it to the 2,000 year.  Arzalluz ran to Madrid to meet with
Aznar and went he got out told news reporters that politcal talks would be
best to push them further and that EAJ will keep promoting Ardanza's
proposal that leaves ETA out of talks.   But something very important: EAJ
is not for a Basque state but prefers a different landlord and it looks to
the European Union thinking that a Europe of regions will be a reality
someday.  In other words, self-determination and even Basque independence
is part of EAJ's symbolic speech to keep the support of its bases when in
reality its leadership is not interested.

Lets not forget that the Lizarra agreement is not the first attempt to
build a basque nationalist front.  In 1971 ETA V and  ETA VI, Enbata,
Branka, Anai Artea and EAJ's EGI had talks for the creation of a National
Front to unite all basque nationalists in ipar and hego Euskal Herria.
This plan was of ETA's Branka led by Txillardegi and Anai Artea led by EAJ
dissident Telesforo Monzon.  Nothing was done because the ETA that later
joined PSE, and EAJ rejected the front.  EAJ of course wanted to control
the front and left the talks arguing that Basque unity would have to be
pacted inside the (future) "government of Euskadi."  These are different
times and EAJ can't afford to get out.

The political landscape in the three provinces is very complex and so far
only HB is coming out with an interesting plan, the National Assembly, for
all Euskal Herria.   It will take many years to see what kind of political
force the assembly would  become and if it will have enough power to
achieve any changes.  I also would like to see ideas to integrate those
outside Basque nationalism.  Our enemies are the governments, not the
Spanish and the French people.  One big problem in EH is that there is a
vaccum and lack of ideas.  We run out of EH to ask for help to solve our
problems because there is no creativity or leadership.  The National
Assembly proposed by HB could be a good start.

Jokin Z.


> thanks
>
> Jon
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> The meaning of your communication is the response you get.
>
> Prof. Jon Patrick
> Sybase Chair of Information Systems
> Dept. of Computer Science                  +61 2 9351 3524(Work)
> University of Sydney
> Sydney, 2006                               +61 2 9351 3838(Fax)
> Personal Page WEB       http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~jonpat
> Department Page WEB     http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>