The seven convicted of blood crimes who were on the electoral lists of EH Bildu for the local elections have resigned this Tuesday to be councilors if they are elected on the next 28-M and the issue continues to be the main issue in this municipal and regional electoral campaign.
After almost a week of controversy, the announcement has not taken long to provoke the reactions of all political forces. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in a small act in Alcorcón (Madrid) has asked the seven affected to appear before the Electoral Board “in the next few hours” and “in writing they renounce the minutes.” He demands it like this so that “this is not another hoax”, he added.
In the event that they make their decision official in this way, Feijóo has considered, it will be clear that “the Government has lost and the Spanish people have won“. The conservative leader has signed up for EH Bildu’s decision while, in his opinion, “Sánchez has remained silent again.” The chief executive was asked about the matter in Washington (USA) last Friday and replied that the inclusion of 44 candidates convicted of belonging to and collaborating with ETA (seven of them for crimes of blood) may be “legal”, but it is not “decent”. Spanish law allows them to participate in political life at all levels despite having been convicted of this type of crime and ETA members and former leaders of the terrorist group have stood for election on numerous occasions in recent decades.
Feijóo considers that now the other 37 candidates who have served sentences for collaboration with ETA should also resign, although not for blood crimes.
The general secretary of Podemos and Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarrawho has described this decision as “important step”although he has avoided criticizing the abertzales, regular partners of the coalition Executive in Congress.
“The citizens of Euskadi and Navarra have been following the difficult path of building peace for a long time,” said the purple leader in a message posted on Twitter early in the morning before pointing out that the decision of the abertzales is ” an important step.” In addition, she has taken the opportunity to criticize the formations of the right for “using the memory of the victims with electoral purposes“.
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The president of the parliamentary group of United We Can in Congress, Jaume Asenshas insisted on the idea that it is a “positive gesture” which serves “to alleviate the pain of the victims and to deactivate the right-wing strategy of placing ETA at the center of the electoral campaign”. In this sense, he has stressed that PP, Vox and Cs use both ETA and the squatting to avoid talking about people’s real problems. However, neither of the two leaders has ruled on the 37 other candidates convicted for belonging to the terrorist group.
“electoralist” decision
The PNV spokesman, Aitor Estebanby assuring that it is evident that 44 people -in reference to all the candidates sentenced for belonging to ETA- It is not an errorit is a conscious decision for certain reasons” and has indicated that the decision to set aside the seven who have crimes of blood may respond to an “electoral calculation” more than an “ethical decision”. Even so, Esteban has recognized that these 44 people “are in full possession of their civil and political rights.” “They have left a way to go and internalize”, has sentenced the jeltzale deputy in a press conference in the Congress of Deputies.