Batasuna - Electoral Results

Electoral Results

Batasuna's support in the elections to the parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community (under the three brands it has used, i.e., Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok and EHAK) oscillates around 15% of the total votes, its best result being the 18.33% achieved in 1990 and the lowest the 10.12% of the total votes obtained in 2001.

In Navarre its results in the elections to the Navarrese Foral parliament have been historically slightly less than 15% of the total votes, reaching their highest result in 1999 (15.95% of the total votes) and their lowest in 1995 (9.22% of the total votes). In this territory other Basque pro-independence left wing parties which reject violence and so remain legal - namely Batzarre and specifically, Aralar- erode Batasuna's support in a more significant way than in the Basque Autonomous Community.

Batasuna had representatives in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of Navarre and the provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community. It also ruled some 62 local councils, and had members in many more. While it is fairly represented in all Basque and Navarrese Spanish territories, Batasuna counts as its stronghold the province of Guipuscoa. After being banned, Batasuna has lost all its representatives in the Spanish Parliament, since regaining (under different names) some their seats in elections held after its banning.

While the party has been barred from formally taking part in elections since 2003 (see below), it has coordinated a variety of forms of participation (or "quantifiable non-participation") in recent elections. After the May 2003 provincial and local elections, followers of the local lists protested claiming the council seats corresponding to the invalid votes (127,000, 10% of the total vote in the Basque Country).

For the Basque elections of 2005, Batasuna presented lists of candidates but they were dismissed as illegal. After the new election was held for the Basque regional parliament, Batasuna lost all their remaining elected representatives.

Like those parties, representatives of EHAK have refused to explicitly condemn the ETA attacks but, given the fact that elections were to be held in a matter of days, the courts did not have the time to assess EHAK's compliance with the Ley de Partidos. The People's Party requested that the Spanish government conducts investigations to ban EHAK-PCTV too, though the State Legal Service (Abogacía General del Estado) and the Attorney General's Office (Fiscalía General del Estado) found no evidence to support legal actions against the party. Batasuna asked their supporters to vote for EHAK.

In the Basque elections of April 17, 2005, EHAK obtained 150.188 votes (12,5%), entering the Basque Parliament with nine seats (all but one being women).