The BNG has given this Sunday the starting gun for the campaign for the elections of next 29 November, with the goal of reaching "massive support" that will allow Galicia to gain "more political weight" and position itself as "the alternative for the social majority" against the parties of "systemic bipartisanship" which, once they leave the Community, suffer from the "Padornelo syndrome" and "forget where they come from."
21 days before the opening of the polling stations, and in the face of more than a thousand attendees who filled the hall of the Multiusos Fontes do Sar, under the slogan 'Galiza, Dereitos, Vida Digna, Agora con máis Forza!', the nationalist formation has held a National Meeting in which it has urged concentrating the vote on the BNG to achieve the strength needed to defend in Madrid the interests of Galicia "without asking for permission and without asking for apologies."
Flanked by the heads of the ticket from the four provinces --Néstor Rego (A Coruña), Carme da Silva (Pontevedra), Olalla Rodil (Lugo) and Noa Presas (Ourense)--, the national spokesperson, Ana Pontón, has opened her remarks by appealing to the BNG's "unconditional love" for Galicia against those who "campaign saying that they love Galicia a lot" but, when measures like a commuter train or "putting an end to the AP-9 scam" are demanded, then "Galicia no longer seems so 'little' to them."
"Without asking for permission and without asking for apologies," Pontón has reiterated, the representatives of the Bloc in the Cortes Generales are ready to receive "massive support," defend the country's interests, and "make themselves respected."
"Darkness" versus "hope" on the international stage
Pontón has framed the political moment in a context "complex, confusing and worrying," referring to issues such as "genocide in Palestine" or the role of the United States "interfering in elections, bombarding Iran, or with the cruel blockade of Cuba."
Against that "dark reality," the nationalist leader has claimed the "beacons of hope," citing Lula da Silva's victory in Brazil as an example. "We need to keep defeating that old imperialism that is causing more wars, more injustices, and making people's lives more difficult and more precarious every day," she said, stressing that "their wars are paid for" by citizens.
In this line, she has questioned the “soflamas” of those who claim that “there are no resources for dependency, health care, education, or housing,” while “military spending was duplicated all at once.” “There’s money for bombs, but not for people to have a home,” Pontón denounced.
Stateless nations and criticism of “systemic bipartisanship”
The BNG spokesperson has presented stateless nations as the real “alternative” to “systemic bipartisanship,” attacking the State’s “centralist design” and the “corruption” she attributes to PP and PSOE.
“Against all that, in Galicia there is hope; there is a political force with its hands free so that Galicia can be made to be respected: the BNG,” she said, defending the formation’s project “solid, born of the people and for the people,” and asserting that “peripheral” forces are “the alternative and the hope of a new and different kind of politics.”
She also mocked the idea that the 23 Galician deputies who will be elected on 29N “should represent this country,” but, in her view, elected officials from state forces suffer “the Padornelo syndrome” when they cross the Galician border and “all of a sudden they don’t know where they come from and the only thing they do is obey orders from their Madrid parties.”
At this point, she cited figures such as the former President of the Xunta Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Miguel Tellado, or Ana de Bande, asking herself “how many times have they talked about Galicia.” “Good thing we have Néstor and Carme representing us with dignity,” she emphasized, highlighting the work carried out by BNG deputies in the Cortes Generales during the legislature.
Therefore, she stressed that these general elections “are about Galicia having more political weight,” continuing to count on “its own voice, but stronger,” and, in short, that “the country will only win with more strength from the BNG.”
“We’re going to go all out, to break through the ceilings, and we’re going to tell them that they fail in their polls. You are our algorithm; we need you to wage the battle in the territory, on the networks, that we fight for every vote so that next November 29 we say: here there is an unstoppable BNG and without limits to defend Galicia,” Pontón concluded, to applause from party members and supporters who crowded the Compostela pavilion.
“Let’s change the script” and stop fascism
The event, led by the candidates for Pontevedra Roberto Pascual and María Obelleiro, was opened one hour earlier by the mayor of Santiago and host, Goretti Sanmartín, who emphasized that the vote for the BNG is the one that will make it possible to “stop fascism” and “improve the lives” of Galicians.
After that, Noa Presas, number 1 for Ourense, spoke up, calling for an end to the idea of “impossibles” and to tackle a campaign that could end with her as the first Ourense deputy of the Bloc in Madrid. “We are not a priming-spray; we are work and dignity,” she stressed.
The candidate for Lugo, Olalla Rodil, used a football simile when evoking the victory of Deportivo de A Coruña over Real Madrid in the final of the Copa del Rey in 2002. “We went all out so that Galicia writes its own script because, in these elections, just like in the Centenariazo, we’re betting more than a single match,” she said, recalling the “more than 50 years” without BNG representation from Lugo in Congress, which, she said, has left the province “absolutely weighed down by the State’s decisions.”
“We fulfill our commitments” and a call for a useful vote
Next, the head of the list for Pontevedra, Carme da Silva, encouraged people to turn “all the energy” of the gathering into “more strength for Galicia” and into the launch of “transformative policies in the service of social majorities.” Referring to the increase in military spending in the last legislature, she defended directing those resources “at home” and not “continuing to feed the monster of war.”
Lastly, the candidate for A Coruña, Néstor Rego, has admitted that the campaign that is starting will be “decisive,” but it is faced “with the satisfaction of work carried out” in a legislature in which, he has claimed, the BNG “fulfilled its commitments.”
“Every vote for the BNG is one less deputy for the reactionary bloc that wants to move backward,” Rego emphasized, who also questioned the role of Galician parliamentarians like Miguel Tellado or Ana Vázquez in Congress.
For that reason, he asked people to vote “with conviction,” appealing to the “useful vote” and to a BNG that defends “wages, pensions and better public services” against a PP that, he said, “precarizes and privatizes them.” “No one who wants to move forward on rights and defend this country can stay home,” he concluded, urging people to also take part in the general strike on November 11.
"If we move the workers' mobilization to the ballot box, if we move the exemplary mobilization of the Galician youth in defense of their rights, of housing and against fascism, be sure that we are going to achieve it", he has assured.