The FORO ERMUA appeals to citizens to support one of the constitutionalist parties in the Basque regional elections on 17 April

Bilbao. 13 April 2005. On Sunday the 17th of April, we Basque citizens have an important decision to make at the polls; our future is in our hands. The major choice that awaits us is whether to prolong, for another four years, the nationalist PNV-EA coalition in the Basque regional government or to once and for all remove the nationalists from power after 25 uninterrupted years in office.

There is no real middle ground between those two options because any possible combination between the PNV-EA coalition (signer of a secret pact with ETA) and one of the constitutionalist parties (the Socialist or the People’s Party)   would be completely unacceptable for us.

The only possible formula leading to full-fledged change in the government, the much needed political shift from Basque nationalism, is one led by the Socialist and People's Parties brought about by an agreement between these two in order to re-establish full operability of the democratic system and respect for the freedom of all basque citizens. 

The FORO ERMUA calls on the citizens, as it has in other previous elections, to give their vote to a candidate able to meet the following four basic conditions:

1) Undertake a clear commitment to the formation of a government coalition between PP (People's Party) and the PSE (Socialist Party), to the exclusion of any governmental collaboration with PNV (Basque Nationalist Party).

2) Adopt the 1978 democratic constitution and the Guernica Statute (1979) as the one and only framework upon which to build peaceful coexistence among Basques.

3) Reject all negotiation with ETA proposed as an alleged formula for the latter’s “integration” into the constitutional system and inequivocally profess to bring an end to ETA by continuing to apply law enforcement and judicial measures and by politically isolating its satellite organisations.

4) Lend sincere and open support to the victims of terrorism and their representative organisations, preventing any attempt to divide them or delegitimize their just demands.