On a decision taken on the early hours of 6th May the Constitutional Court has allowed Bildu to run for elections on the 22nd Ma

Bildu is an electoral coalition created by Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque social democrats - founding members of European Free Alliance) and Alternatiba (Local pro-sovereignty split from the United Left) for the coming local and provincial elections (22nd May). This coalition is open to pro-independence left independents, which share its political project and want to work for peace and normalisation in the Basque Country.

The coalition, founded by two unequivocally democratic parties, has clearly rejected violence and asked ETA to put an end to violence. Furthermore all the candidates of the coalition have signed an Ethical Decalogue including an unequivocal rejection of violence.

However the Supreme Court banned Bildu on the Spanish Government’s request, and denied its right to context elections. This banning was based upon the theory that all the independent candidates in the coalition are Batasuna-friendly or had been chosen by Batasuna. And so the whole electoral coalition was under ETA’s orders. Even more the ruling argued that the rejection of violence of Bildu had been ordered by ETA itself.

The Constitutional Court on a ruling released on the early hours of the 6th May accepted Bildu’s appeal and stated that the Supreme Court didn’t have enough proves to illegalise Bildu.

Bildu’s spokespersons were in Bilbo with thousands of people waiting for the ruling to be released. Once the ruling was official they addressed the demonstrators, they were grateful for the international support they have received, they recalled that there are still illegal political parties and they stressed that there is still a long path ahead and huge workload for the elections.

International Support:

There have been lots of support demonstrations, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Brussels and actions (24 MEPs sent an open letter to Mr Barroso, Mr Van Rompuy and Mr Rodriguez Zapatero, Gernika Network released a declaration, European Free Alliance’s Press release...)