Basque elections up stakes for Rajoy

"Socialist collapse gives Rajoy breathing space and pushes Basque country towards sovereignty", reports El País in the wake of 21 October regional elections in Galicia and the Basque Country. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP) has conserved its absolute majority in Galicia, while the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the separatist EH-Bildu topped the poll in the Basque Country. The two nationalist parties now control almost two thirds of the region’s parliament.

The Madrid daily notes that —

… the Prime Minister will mainly concerned by the upsurge in radical nationalism [in the Basque Country]. With five weeks left to run before elections in Catalonia, where there is another independentist challenge, Rajoy would do well to draw some conclusions that go beyond the regional election results. These developments have emerged against the backdrop of a national economic emergency, with Spain mired in recession and facing the threat of a bailout. Also, several regions have been forced to call on the central government for financial assistance, unemployment is rampant, and an autumn of social unrest will come to a head with a general strike on 14 November.

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For its part, El Mundoconsiders that the results in Galicia —

… will allow [Rajoy] to assert that the policy of adjustment and the failure to respect election promises may have been punished in the polls, but the same has not been true of the election results.

Noting that the result of the Basque election will inevitably have an impact on the next election rendezvous, on 25 November in Catalonia, the conservative daily adds —

The best result in the history of the sovereigntist bloc [...] will be a boon to [regional president] Artur Mas, who may attempt to forge alliances with the Basque independence movement and push for a no options policy that will result in the definitive destabilisation of Spain.