The general secretary of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, demanded this Saturday support in the general elections of November 29 from those who have never previously backed the sovereigntist coalition, with the aim that "the independentist left lead the anti-fascist bloc in Euskal Herria" and that those votes "be decisive to sour the night for the fascists of the PP and Vox."
Otegi made this call at the close of the demonstration organized by EH Bildu in Bilbao under the slogan 'Badatorren Euskal Herria defendatu' ('Defending the Euskal Herria that is coming), which brought together thousands of attendees.
The march set off at five in the afternoon from La Casilla, behind a large banner with the slogan "Euskal Herria Defendatu", carried by Arnaldo Otegi, the top candidate for EH Bildu from Bizkaia for Congress, Oskar Matute, the candidate for the Senate from Bizkaia, Idurre Bideguren, the candidate for Congress from Álava, Mikel Otero, the candidate for the Senate from Gipuzkoa, Sonia Jacinto, and the candidate for Congress from Navarra, Eneka Maiz. Alongside them, other EH Bildu leaders marched, such as the parliamentarian Nerea Kortajarena, the secretary of Political Action, Arkaitz Rodríguez, and the mayor of Pamplona, Joseba Asiron.
Between slogans in favor of independence and prisoners, and waving flags of Navarra and ikurriñas, the demonstration concluded in Plaza Circular with a political event. There, Otegi stressed that the sovereigntist coalition "plants ideas, that is our job, planting ideas." "And first ideas are planted, then social majorities are formed, and then the Basque Republic is finally proclaimed, democratic, socialist, euskaldun and feminist," he said, before emphasizing that "there is nothing more powerful than an idea that has reached its time."
The abertzale leader joked about the heavy rain that fell during the rally, assuring that "EH Bildu is getting wet for Euskal Herria and for anti-fascism, there’s no problem, we’re not going to be scared." He then pointed out that "everyone talks about a historical moment, a historical crossroads, and it’s true, in which in liberal democracies the alternations that we have known until now are not at stake."
In that “historic crossroads,” he has emphasized, “it is clear on which side EH Bildu and the voters, sympathizers, and the people who make up the social bloc of independence and progressive movement in this country lean.” “We men and women are convinced that this country knows no limits,” he has defended, to those who consider that it is “a small nation that has limited its ambitions.” As he has said, “we have not come this far to stay at the door and we are not going to ask permission to get all the way to the end.”
After pointing out that “there is no progressive government in the State if the forces that we want to leave the State to make our own State do not contribute to strengthening that option,” Otegi has proposed “a second paradox”: “we are ‘indepes’ because any of the governments that is produced or built in the Spanish State is always a political minority in this country.”
In this context, he has insisted that EH Bildu does not intend to “manage resignation,” but to “build governments of hope for the people,” because “we do not resign ourselves to the management of resignation,” but rather “we govern with ambition to raise the expectations and the hope of the people.”
Looking at the quote from November 29, he has urged those in attendance to “convince one or two people who have not voted for Bildu to do so,” because, he said, “on this occasion voting for Bildu is not voting a political acronym,” but rather “voting for the future of this country, for its women, for its young people, and for workers is voting for anti-fascism.” “And on election night we are going to fill the ballot boxes with those votes,” he has assured.
Otegi also referred to those who “there are some who are worried about what our allies are on the international stage” and, after recalling the incorporation of former CUP leader David Fernández into EH Bildu, he has highlighted the presence in the march of the vice president of the socialists of the U.S. Democratic Party.
“Those are the allies of EH Bildu, Lula in Brazil, the democratic socialists in the United States, Sinn Féin and the Frente Amplio. Those form part of humanity that is clear where the line is between fascists and anti-fascists, between authoritarians and democrats, between neoliberals and socialists, and between those who bomb towns and produce genocides and those of us who defend the right to free self-determination of all the peoples of the planet,” he has emphasized.
The leader of EH Bildu has said that the coalition’s desire is to be able to proclaim on the night of November 29 “not only that the independentist left leads the antifascist bloc across all of Euskal Herria, but also that, besides, its votes are decisive for souring the night for the fascists of the PP and Vox.”
Finally, Otegi has pointed out that EH Bildu likes “this Euskal Herria more and more, because it is increasingly resembling the principles and values that we have defended, feminist, socialist, sovereignist values, those of progress and antifascism,” and he has called on militants and sympathizers “to the job” so that “hope governs and so that Euskal Herria governs.”