The spokesperson for EH Bildu in Congress, Mertxe Aizpurua, estimates that, even if the spending ceiling "falls again," the Executive will end up registering the Budget project, although "the most likely thing is that they will not go through" and will end up serving as an "argument" to call for elections, but without it being "an early election as such." At the same time, she has defended that the legislature must continue to "advance on many issues" and not "open the doors to the right and the far-right," without ruling out that Pedro Sánchez will once again achieve "the votes to govern."
In an interview on Radio Euskadi, reported by Europa Press, the abertzale deputy has pointed out that the rejection of the spending ceiling in Congress "has not surprised anyone" and has predicted that "it will fall again next week." Even so, she considers that the Government "is going to present the budgets," although "the most likely thing is that they will not go through." As she has explained, the Executive "is determined to present them" and EH Bildu is preparing to "work with all affection" so that "they are good budgets" within the negotiation, after already having "some conversation" with the Government, although "without going into substance."
Aizpurua has pointed out that, if the accounts do not prosper, the Executive "will have the argument there to say that it is calling elections a little early," although "it would no longer be an early election as such." She has insisted that "we must get out of this paralysis in which the Government seems to be immersed," recalling that "there are also those who are quite concerned with making it so." In her opinion, there are still "many issues on which progress can be made" and "important steps" can be taken on social policies that concern citizens, from "tombing" the Gag Law to deepening plurinationality. "Eleven months are enough for a lot," she remarked.
Asked about the role of Junts for the remainder of the legislature, she has stressed that "yesterday it approved the Dependency Law" and that "there are times when it supports some issues." In this regard, she has warned that "we cannot be the ones to declare something over based on what others may think" and has stressed that "everyone has to make their own decisions at their own risk and by making a political reading."
He clarified that EH Bildu is not a "partner" of Sánchez because there is "no government pact" with PSOE and Sumar, although they do consider themselves "perhaps those who most clearly see what can happen and the consequences if the right and far-right come to govern". "That is why we are supporting this legislature, that is why we say that this legislature must continue, because the opposite would be opening the doors to the right and the far-right and nobody in Euskal Herria wants that, certainly not us," he reiterated.
Despite admitting that the legislature is going through a "very, very delicate" moment and that "things change very quickly," he does not rule out that Sánchez may be able to renew his mandate and sees it as "possible that the PSOE can get the necessary votes to be able to govern in the future."
Criticism of the sentence against David Sánchez and lawfare
At another point in the interview, Aizpurua referred to the sentence of nine years of disqualification from public office imposed on David Sánchez, the Prime Minister's brother, a resolution that she says she knows "very superficially" but which, in her opinion, "seems to be a sentence based more on hypotheses than on evidence." She recalled that "in fact, they have ruled out convicting him of influence peddling, because the judge has been forced, I believe, to say that there has been no such influence peddling" and that finally "they convict him of prevarication," although "even the sentence itself says that it is not known who has really prevaricated" and "in a way they place the burden on the accused and the rest of the defendants."
She also warned that, if it is maintained that "that job was neither necessary nor urgent," then "a list of millions of jobs that are neither necessary according to someone's opinion nor urgent" could be questioned. For this reason, she described the judicial resolution as "very flimsy." For Mertxe Aizpurua, "it could be lawfare" and she assured that "that political operation that is happening around the Spanish Prime Minister is clearly lawfare, especially with regard to his family, which is a rather petty and rather brutal way of acting." "Not everything goes in politics," she concluded.
Likewise, he has denounced that "there are those who establish a false dichotomy between being able to denounce corruption and also denouncing the lawfare that is being seen." He has admitted that "there may be cases of corruption" and that "some cases may be much clearer than others," but he has insisted that "lawfare exists and has existed," recalling that "the abertzale left has lived it for years and years," that it was later seen with the Catalan 'procés,' that there was also "with Podemos" and that now "it has fallen to the Socialist Party."
According to what he has pointed out, "it is the structures of power that, when they see something they consider unbreakable and that cannot be modified at risk, act, which is what Aznar asked them to do, that 'whoever can do it, do it,' and that is what is happening."