The Basquist illusion. The convergence of PSOE and EE (1992-1994)

Abstract

In 1993, after passing through a stage of electoral decline, two of the biggest leftist political parties in the Basque Country joined together to create the PSE-EE a vasquista alternative against the institutional hegemony of the PNV. On one hand the PSE-PSOE, the oldest political party of the Region, which came from the traditional working-class left. On the other hand EE, a heterodox nationalist force whose origins went back into the terrorist organization ETA. Convergence was publicized as the creation of a new party, but the truth is that the process turned out to be a simple absorption of the euskadikos by the traditional socialism. Despite their success in the 1993 Legislative elections, in which the PSE-EE outperformed the PNV, the vasquista project failed in the 1994 Regional turnout and, as its consequence, it was politically buried.