Researchers in the University of Basque Country (UPV/EHU) have studied the main Basque and Spanish newspapers to observe the campaign, and they have found three main findings.

The Basque Nationalist Party’s candidate, Juan José Ibarretxe, is the worst treated in the press. The researchers have studied 7 newspapers and, in three of them, have received the worst space, the worst discourse and the worst photographical image. In other three his treatment isn’t better than the others (Patxi López in the Spanish Socialist Party and Antonio Basagoiti in the Popular Party) and, finally, only in one of them has received the better image, discourse and space.

If a newspaper gives a good treatment to Patxi López, Antonio Basagoiti too receives a good treatment. And if the better treated is Basagoiti, López too receives this good treatment. In both cases Ibarretxe has received the worst treatment.

The Spanish and Basque main newspapers elaborate the discourse of the candidates. And they can offer any examples: El País, the main paper in Spain, contextualizes the news about Lopez’s economical policies with the Basque Government bad results in this area (but the Basque situation about the crisis is much better than the Spanish one).

This Observatory will offer its final conclusions and methodology in the Media & Nationalism encounter that will be held in Bilbao by next September or October. These researchers have used the new tools in Internet to offer the analyse everyday in a blog. This is the first experiment and has been successful with 20.000 visits in one month.

All the information about this issue will be explained too in the next encounter.

The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has won the Elections in Euskadi again, with 30 parliamentarians (the Basque Parliament has got 75 sites), but the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE, centre-left wing) and the Popular Party (PP, right wing and Spanish nationalist) will unite their parliamentarians to hold the Government.

Before the elections, the Spanish justice has banned two new parties because, in its opinion, both were near to ETA. If one of these new parties could participate in the Basque elections, with the 10% of the votes and by the D’Hont System, the Spanish Parties haven’t hold their results.

These are the results:

Basque Nationalist Party: 30 parliamentarians,

Spanish Socialist Party (centre-left wing): 25,

Popular Party (Spanish right wing): 13,

Aralar (Basque left wing): 4,

EA (Basque left wing): 1,

EB (Spanish Federalist Party): 1,

UPD (Spanish right wing): 1.

Finally, perhaps the new President of the Basque Government (lehendakari) could be Patxi López (Spanish Socialist Party) and not Juan José Ibarretxe (Basque Nationalist Party). This will be the first occasion in 30 years that the Basque Nationalist Party leaves the Basque Government.

This Observatory can be followed in the blog Elecciones Vascas 2009 (in Spanish language), and the main difference with others is that you can read the analysis and conclusions everyday.

Finally, by February 25 the Observatory will present the partial conclusions, before the Basque Elections. All the methodology, the complete research and results will be exhibited during the encounter in Bilbao.

The coordinators of the second encounter on Media & Nationalism have implicated the University of the Basque Country and now are looking for the best place to organize the seasons.

Bilbao city centre is the first option, but several options are been studied.

Related to this event, the researchers in Bilbao are creating an observatory to analyze the next Basque political campaign (the elections will be next 1 march). We will give you more information in next posts.

The coordinators of the first Summer School in Media & Nationalism in Vic are preparing now the second edition which will be held in Bilbao (Euskadi) in 2009.

Nowadays, they are working to define the subject of the encounter and the most suitable dates to join together again. Vic’s participants and assistants will be welcomed, as well as new researchers and students interested in national conflicts.

In this way, the coordinators, following the Vic precedent, will propose three or four days to continue with the conversations started in Catalonia and, in this occasion, to observe the Basque Conflict while visiting Bilbao. This event will be proposed in a week from September to November (concrete dates to be confirmed).