The general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, stated this Tuesday that will be the candidate for Lehendakari in the next Basque regional elections if EH Bildu so decides. In addition, he has assured that they aspire to win the Basque Government, “without anxieties or special obsessions or special haste”.
In an interview with Radio Euskadi, Otegi pointed out that if the people within Bildu decide that he is going to be their candidate for Lehendakari, it will be. “I will decide based on whether it is good or not”, he has stressed.
In addition, he has ensured that his formation aspires to win the regional elections in the three historical territories of the Basque Autonomous Community: “There are people in the country who try to project the idea that EH Bildu’s fang is getting too long because wants to evict a certain party (PNV) from a certain institution“. Faced with this, he has defended that they do not conceive “the future of this country without the existence of a Basque national center-right party such as the PNV.”
“We do not know if there are people in the PNV who think that this country can be built without the existence of the pro-independence left, probably yes, but we do not conceive of a country without other social and political sectors without the existence of a center right, a center left,” he said.
After Otegi was sentenced by the National Court in September 2011 to 10 years in prison and 10 years of disqualification for belonging to a terrorist group, the leader of Bildu could, today, exercise his right to passive suffrage. In other words, he could present himself as a candidate for the presidency of the Basque Country.