By Tito Drago
MADRID, Oct 9 1998 (IPS)

Spain’s attention will be riveted on the coming Basque country elections, in which more than 1.8 million residents of the autonomous region will have a chance to use their ballots to influence the future of the embryonic peace process with ETA.

One of the first tasks of the new parliament and Basque government – whose new president will be designated by parliament – will be to define the peace process, based on the unilateral, unconditional ceasefire declared Sep. 18 for an indefinite period of time by the outlawed Basque separatist organisation ETA.

Sources at the Ministry of the Interior told IPS Friday that Spain’s centre-right government, headed by the Popular Party’s Jose Maria Aznar, was willing to negotiate directly with the Herri Batasuna (HB) coalition – considered the political arm of ETA – if HB stopped supporting the violence and accepted the route of political negotiations.

To do that, HB would have to recognise the representativeness of the autonomous Basque parliament, they added.

But the peace talks will depend to a large extent on the balance of forces in the Basque parliament between the nationalist parties and those with nationwide constituencies.

Polls indicate that the higher the voter turnout in the Oct. 25 elections, the greater will be the balance of forces in parliament, which is to name the successor to the current president of the Basque government, Jose Antonio Ardanza of the moderate Nationalist Basque Party (PNV).

Opinion polls indicate that if voter abstention is equal to or higher than the 40 percent seen in the last autonomous elections in 1994, the nationalists could win up to 42 seats, against 33 for the rest of the parties.

But if turnout is 70 percent or higher, there would be a greater balance of forces between the nationalist and other parties, which would be positive for the peace process.

The fact that voter turnout is lower in the autonomous elections than in general elections – in which participation in the Basque country has been as high as 70 percent – is attributed to the lack of interest in autonomy and the autonomous government among sympathisers of the nationwide parties – the conservative PP, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and the United Left (IU).

The central point on the platform of all of the parties participating in the election campaign launched Friday is peace and the stance to be taken with respect to ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Basque Fatherland and Freedom in Basque language).

ETA’s decision to suspend the use of violence – which has claimed around 800 lives since the group began to stage armed attacks in 1968 – and “delegate” responsibility for negotiating with the Spanish government to the nationalist parties awakened hopes that peace could finally arrive to the Basque country.

But the Basque nationalist parties and the IU are more optimistic regarding the possibility of a lasting peace than the ruling PP and Spain’s leading opposition party PSOE.

The Eusko Herretariak coalition (EH, of which HB is a member) wants ETA to participate in any future peace negotiations. The PNV and Eusko Alkartasuna (EA, which split from the PNV), suggest that peace be debated in the autonomous parliament – a position supported by the IU, a nationwide alliance headed by the Communist Party.

The PP and the PSOE maintain that the debate should be based on and limited to the framework of the accords known as the ‘Mesa de Ajuria Enea’ – the seat of the Basque government – and the ‘Mesa de Madrid’. All of the parties with parliamentary representation in the Basque country participated in the agreements, with the exception of HB.

The new element is the willingness of Aznar’s PP government to dialogue with HB or EH if the peace process is consolidated and ETA reaffirms its ceasefire.

In the electoral arena, the Basque government released the results of its last opinion poll Thursday night, according to which the only change would be an increased number of seats for EH- HB.

Two other polls, by the PP and PSOE, predict that PNV’s share will go up from 24 to 25 seats, the PP and PSOE will win 14 posts each, and EH-HB would have 11 representatives in the new Basque parliament. The rest of the seats would be divided between the IU, EA and the small Alavesa Unidad.

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