PP and UPN reach a preliminary agreement to run together in the elections on November 29.

According to the statutory report of Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) that collects the party's internal regulation, the Political Council is the highest body of political expression and control of the leadership between congresses. Its competencies focus on setting the political line, deciding pacts and coalitions, and overseeing the Executive Committee, as well as intervening in the selection of certain key candidacies, such as the Presidency of the Government of Navarra.

Based on the statutory articles located about the nature and functions of the Political Council, its main competencies can be summarized as follows:

Nature and general role

• Highest body between congresses: The Political Council is the superior political decision-making body of UPN between congresses, above the Executive Committee regarding major orientations and strategic decisions.
• Expression of the party's political will: It is responsible for “expressing the political will of UPN” during periods when the Congress is not convened, so its agreements set the official position of the party on major issues.
• Control functions: In addition to defining the political line, it exercises control and supervision functions over the actions of the Executive Committee.

Definition of the political line

• Positioning on current political affairs: The Political Council can adopt resolutions on current political, institutional, or social issues that require a formal position from the party, both in Navarra and throughout Spain and the EU.
• Criteria on legislative and regulatory projects: It is empowered to set UPN's orientation regarding bills, regional laws, or other relevant initiatives, marking the guidelines that the party's public officials must follow.
• Approval of general lines of action: It is responsible for approving the major lines of policy, economy, and the party's internal organization, always within the framework set by the reports approved at the Congress.

Relationship with the Executive Committee and internal control

• Political control of the Executive Committee: The Political Council controls the actions of the Executive Committee, being able to demand explanations, evaluate its management, and, if necessary, correct political orientations.
• Pronouncement on leadership proposals: It must debate and, if applicable, approve or reject projects, political documents, regulations, and other initiatives submitted by the Executive Committee for validation.
• Internal reports and documents: It can issue reports, opinions, studies, or proposals when requested by the Executive Committee, also functioning as a consultative body of the leadership.
• Supervision of internal life: It exercises a general supervisory role over the functioning of the party's bodies, within the framework of political control provided by the statutes.

Competencies regarding alliances and candidacies

• Policy on pacts and coalitions: One of its central functions is to decide the electoral alliance policy of UPN for each electoral process (regional, municipal, general, or European). According to recent practice, the Political Council must expressly pronounce on each pact or coalition affecting the party's initials.
• Approval of specific agreements: Available information confirms that, in practice, the Political Council meets to accept or reject certain coalition agreements or electoral formulas negotiated by the leadership, for example with the Popular Party, in accordance with what the statutes provide.
• Selection of the candidacy for the Presidency of Navarra: The statutes assign the Political Council the competence to choose the UPN candidate for the Presidency of the Government of Navarra among those who participate in the corresponding internal process.
• Intervention in lists and candidacies: In cases provided by internal rules, it intervenes in the approval or ratification of candidacies and electoral lists, being able to accept or reject proposals submitted by the Executive Committee.

Economic-organizational functions

• Annual report and accounts: It must examine and approve or reject the annual report submitted to it, which includes:
  • The party's accounts.
  • The activity and objectives report.
  • The report on staff and organizational structure.

Overall, the UPN Political Council acts as the party's internal parliament: it sets the political orientation, controls the leadership, and decides on pacts, coalitions, and strategic candidacies. The competencies described here come from the available statutory report and recent practice; for a strictly legal verification of the “latest version” of the statutes, it may be useful to directly compare with the text that UPN has published or officially deposited.

Cristina Ibarrola Guillén (Pamplona, 1969) is a Navarrese doctor and politician, current president of Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) and one of the main references of the regionalist center-right in Navarra. Her trajectory combines a long career in health management in the regional government with parliamentary, municipal responsibilities and, since 2024, the organic leadership of UPN and the projection as a candidate for the Presidency of the Government of Navarra.

Professional origin and health management stage

With a medical background, Ibarrola first developed a career in the Navarrese Health Service-Osasunbidea, where she moved from clinical practice to management. From the early 2000s, she assumed various managerial positions in Primary Care, which placed her at the forefront of Navarrese health administration.

The decisive leap occurred during Yolanda Barcina's legislature: between 2011 and 2014 she served as Director General of Health of the Government of Navarra, responsible for the overall health policy of the community. Subsequently, between 2014 and 2015, she was appointed Managing Director of the Navarrese Health Service-Osasunbidea, the highest management position of the Navarrese public system. After UPN left the regional government in 2015, she remained linked to public health in technical roles, especially in chronicity and care quality projects, until 2019.

Entry into institutional politics: Parliament of Navarra

In the 2019 regional elections, Ibarrola made the leap to representative politics and was elected regional parliamentarian on the Navarra Suma lists, a coalition led by UPN. During the 2019-2023 legislature, she served as spokesperson of her group on the Health Commission, consolidating a political profile closely linked to health management and scrutiny of the Government of Navarra's health policy.

During this stage, her internal weight in the party was also strengthened, assuming organic responsibilities and positioning herself in UPN's leadership core, which facilitated her later projection to municipal responsibilities and the organization's leadership.

Mayor of Pamplona and municipal leadership

In the municipal elections of May 28, 2023, Cristina Ibarrola led the UPN candidacy for the Pamplona City Council. The regionalist list was the most voted and, on June 17, 2023, she was invested as mayor of Pamplona, becoming one of the party's most visible figures.

However, her term was brief: in December 2023, a motion of no confidence promoted by EH Bildu and supported by PSN-PSOE, Geroa Bai, and Contigo-Zurekin succeeded, removing her from the mayoralty. Since then, she has continued in the council as councilor and spokesperson of the UPN municipal group. Despite the short period, her time as mayor strengthened her profile as a frontline leader and reference of the anti-nationalist space in the Navarrese capital.

UPN presidency and regional projection

The definitive leap to party leadership came in April 2024. At the XIII UPN Congress, Ibarrola was elected party president with around 81 % of the delegates' votes, succeeding Javier Esparza. Her election is interpreted as a bet to combine ideological continuity and renewal of faces, relying on her experience in public management and her visibility as former mayor of Pamplona.

From the Presidency, she directs UPN's discourse along two axes: on one hand, recovering institutional and electoral prominence in Navarra; on the other, presenting herself as a bulwark against projects that, in her view, seek to dilute the regional identity within a broader “Euskal Herria” framework. Her position as president is accompanied by intense public and social media activity, focusing her criticisms on the Government of Navarra led by María Chivite and on the PSN's relations with EH Bildu.

Already as UPN leader, in February 2026 the party's Political Council elected her candidate for the Presidency of the Government of Navarra for the upcoming regional elections, with internal support exceeding 80 %. With this, Ibarrola completes the transition from health management to the political apex of Navarrese regionalism, articulating her project around the defense of regional self-government, criticism of corruption, and the promise to “recover” Navarra for a UPN government.

In summary, Cristina Ibarrola's political trajectory is structured in four major stages: health manager of the Government of Navarra, regional parliamentarian specialized in health, mayor and then municipal spokesperson in Pamplona, and finally, president of UPN and candidate for the Presidency of the Navarrese Government, placing her today at the core of Navarrese politics.

In the general elections of July 23, 2023, the constituency of Navarra —which elects 5 deputies to the Congress— yielded a very fragmented result, with four different forces obtaining seats. Below I detail the official results by candidacy, with number of votes, percentage of total valid votes (candidacies plus blank votes), and seats assigned.

Results by candidacy in Navarra (Congress, 23J 2023)

The final distribution of seats in Navarra was as follows:

• PSN-PSOE: 2 deputies.
• EH Bildu: 1 deputy.
• PP: 1 deputy.
• UPN: 1 deputy.

From the point of view of the balance of power, PSN-PSOE was clearly the most voted list, with just over a quarter of the valid votes and twice the seats of any other force. Behind it were, in a relatively narrow margin, EH Bildu, PP, and UPN, all above 15 % of valid votes and with one seat each. This fragmentation around four main blocks is one of the characteristic features of the Navarrese political landscape after 23J.

The case of SUMAR is striking: despite gathering almost 13 % of valid votes and ranking as the fifth force very close to UPN in popular vote, it was left out of the seat distribution. This is a consequence of the combination of the small number of seats at stake (five) and the application of the D’Hondt method in the distribution, which favors the most voted candidacies. Other state-wide or smaller forces —VOX, Geroa Bai, PACMA, PUM+J, FO, PCTE, and Recortes Cero— together summed just over a tenth of valid votes, without gaining representation.

Another relevant feature is the separate candidacies of PP and UPN. In the previous general elections (2019), they had run integrated in the Navarra Suma coalition; in 2023, by presenting separate lists, both achieved their own voter groups and each obtained a seat, thus completing a very plural scenario where no force dominates the Navarrese political space alone.

The above data come from official electoral administration results and can be consulted, with the same level of detail, on portals such as Datoelectoral (Navarra 23J 2023) or public aggregators like RTVE Results Navarra 23J, which reproduce the scrutiny by constituency.