Galician Nationalist Bloc

The Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG; in Spanish, «Bloque Nacionalista Gallego») is a Spanish political group whose ideology is based on Galician nationalism and Galician independence. of the left. Its main territorial area is limited to the autonomous community of Galicia, although it has stood in the Spanish general elections without interruption since 1986 and in the elections to the European Parliament since 1987, alone or in coalition with other parties. The independence movement has broad support among its militants, especially in its youth sector Galiza Nova.^{[citation required]}

It adopts the "front" approach, not a coalition, although the participation of the Unión do Povo Galego (UPG), Movemento Galego ao Socialismo (MGS) and Fronte Obreira Galega (FOGA) parties is currently recognized, as well as of the collective Abrente-Esquerda Democrática Galega. However, most of the membership (70%) is made up of independent affiliates.

Its current institutional presence is made up of 486 councilors, 15 provincial deputies, 19 regional deputies and the mayoralties of several cities, such as Pontevedra, one of the seven large Galician cities. In the November 2019 general elections, he won a seat, which led to his return to the Congress of Deputies.

History

Origin and foundation

In the 1960s, the Unión do Povo Galego (UPG) and the Partido Socialista Galego (PSG) were founded, nationalist parties of a communist and socialist nature, respectively. In 1975 the Galician National-Popular Assembly (AN-PG) was founded, a front promoted by the UPG as a platform for social mobilization and the basis for the future establishment of a nationalist electoral candidacy.

In October 1981, the first elections to the Galician Parliament were held, in which the UPG and the PSG ran in coalition as the Bloque Nacional-Popular Galego (BNPG-PSG). The elections were won by Alianza Popular (AP) and the nationalist parties achieved a rather discreet result, with only three seats. These deputies refused to swear to the 1978 Constitution and after the third refusal they were expelled from Parliament.

First assemblies

On 25 and 26 September 1982, the BNG Constituent Assembly took place at the Riazor Sports Palace in La Coruña.

On September 25 and 26, 1982, the Constituent Assembly of the BNG, which brought together the AN-PG, the UPG, the PSG and other independent groups, took place at the Palacio de los Deportes de Riazor, in La Coruña.. A year later, the PSG left the BNG to later merge with Esquerda Galega in 1984. However, a large group of PSG militants remained in the BNG. In the 1985 regional elections, the BNG only won one seat (Xosé Manuel Beiras) with 52,000 votes, while Coalición Galega, a centrist Galician party, won eleven seats, with three seats for the Galician Socialist Party-Esquerda Galega. The elections were won again by AP under the name of the Popular Coalition of Galicia.

In 1986 the BNG campaigned for a “no” to NATO. That same year, the UPG suffered a split, creating the Communist Party of National Liberation (PCLN), of an independentist and communist nature, which remained, however, in the BNG. At that time, the BNG was at a crossroads and had to choose which political direction to take, taking a more moderate path. The BNG, led by Beiras, moved away from radicalism in an effort to win more electoral support. In the III Assembly of the BNG, held in 1987, the PCLN (which would later form the Galician Popular Front) was expelled from the BNG for supporting Herri Batasuna in the elections to the European Parliament that year.

In 1988, the youth organization of the BNG, Galiza Nova, was created. In the regional elections of 1989, he obtained his own parliamentary group for the first time in the Parliament of Galicia, with 8% of the votes and five seats. In the same elections, neither the Galician Nationalist Party-Galeguista Party (PNG-PG) nor the Galician Popular Front (FPG) won any seats. Instead, the coalition between PSG and EG won two seats.

Growth and decline

During the following years, the BNG experienced great growth in terms of organization and electoral results. Thus, in 1991 the PNG-PG joined the BNG, Esquerda Nacionalista did so the following year and Inzar in 1993. In the 1993 regional elections, the BNG won thirteen deputies, with 18.5% of the vote. After its failure in those elections, Unidade Galega (former PSG-EG) also joined the BNG, which was experiencing its golden age and in the 1996 general elections it won two seats in the Congress of Deputies. In the 1997 regional elections, it became the second Galician political force for the first time, ahead of the PSdeG-PSOE, with 24.8% of the votes and eighteen seats, and in the 1999 European Parliament elections it obtained an MEP, Camilo Nogueira Román. In the 2000 general elections there were already three BNG deputies in Congress.

However, the BNG seemed to have reached its ceiling and in the 2001 regional elections the BNG (22.6% of the vote) and the PSdeG-PSOE won the same number of seats: seventeen. In the XI Assembly of the BNG, held in November 2003, there was a change, taking over from Anxo Quintana to Beiras as national spokesperson and candidate for the presidency of the Junta de Galicia.

In the 2004 general elections, the BNG suffered a crisis due to the continuous decline in votes, since it only got two seats in the Congress of Deputies and none in the Senate (although due to the regional parliamentary quota, he was chosen senator for the BNG Francisco Jorquera). The crisis worsened with the elections to the European Parliament, in which, after running in a coalition with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Convergència i Unió (CiU) in the Galeusca coalition, it ran out of MEPs. In July 2004, Anxo Quintana established changes in the leadership of the BNG.

After the regional elections of 2005, which certified a new setback for the BNG (obtaining thirteen seats), the loss of an absolute majority by Manuel Fraga's PP allowed the BNG to enter a coalition government chaired by the socialist Emilio Pérez Touriño, in which the BNG obtained a vice presidency (which included the Ministries of Institutional Relations and Social Welfare), and which Anxo Quintana held. Likewise, the BNG obtained the newly created ministries of Culture, Industry, Rural Environment and Housing. After four years in office, the possibility of reissuing the bipartite government together with the PSdG-PSOE was lost after the PP regained an absolute parliamentary majority in the 2009 elections, with Alberto Núñez Feijoo being appointed as the new president.

XII National Assembly

Anxo Quintana's speech at a BNG assembly held in December 2006 in Santiago de Compostela.

At the XII National Assembly, held in Santiago de Compostela on December 2 and 3, 2006, four candidates for the National Council were presented:

• The officer, led by Anxo Quintana and with the support of Roberto Mera's independents, obtained 1,646 votes (62.57 %) and obtained 31 representatives in the Council.
• The second candidacy was promoted by Encontro Irmandiño, led by Xosé Manuel Beiras, who obtained 449 votes (17.09 %) and obtained nine representatives;
• Alternative, headed by Rosario Fernández Velho, and supported by Camilo Nogueira Román and Esquerda Nacionalista, obtained 291 votes (11.06 %) and five representatives.
• The last candidacy was that of the Polish Base Movement, formed mainly by members of Galiza Nova and by CIG trade unionists, who obtained 245 votes (9.32 %) and five representatives.

After the vote, an agreement was reached between the different candidacies for the distribution of the members of the National Executive. The official candidacy occupied ten of the fifteen members and the other five were divided between Encontro Irmandiño and A Alternativa; the Movement for the Base supported the agreement despite being left out of the Executive. It was also decided to modify the composition of the next National Assembly so that it would be for delegates and not, as it is now, open to all militants.

In the municipal elections of May 2007, the BNG obtained 19.15% of the vote. Its fall sharpens in the big cities, a decline that is compensated with resounding victories in medium-sized towns such as Carballo, Arzúa, Teo, Monforte de Lemos, Bueu, Porriño or Puentecesures, occupying rural and social spaces that the Popular Party is abandoning. The stagnation is offset by prospects of greater institutional power in city councils and provincial councils (where the Socialists preside, with nationalist support, those of La Coruña and Lugo).

In the general elections of March 2008, the BNG maintained its percentage of votes and its institutional representation. With 209,042 votes (12.07%), compared to 208,688 (11.37%) in 2004, he obtained two deputies, one for La Coruña and the other for Pontevedra.

Extraordinary National Assembly of 2009

BNG demonstration in Santiago de Compostela on 25 July 2009.

In the 2009 Galician Parliament elections, the BNG obtained twelve deputies (one deputy less than those obtained in the previous convocation), corresponding to 16.57% of the votes. He obtained four deputies for La Coruña, two for Lugo, two for Orense and four for Pontevedra. It obtained the worst result since the 1989 elections, continuing the sustained decline from its electoral ceiling obtained in 1997, for which Anxo Quintana and the other fourteen members of the executive presented their joint resignation before the National Council on March 14, 2009.

On April 18, 2009, regional assemblies were held to elect the delegates who would attend the Extraordinary National Assembly called for May 10. There were three main lists, Alternativa pola Unidade (ApU), Listas Abertas and Máis BNG, as well as other lists in some specific regions, such as Independentes do Val Miñor, Movemento Galego ao Socialismo, Esquerda Socialista Galega and Independentes do Ribeiro.

On May 10, the Extraordinary National Assembly was held, in which four candidacies were presented to the National Council:

• Alternative pola Unite (ApU), headed by Guillerme Vázquez and driven by UPG and independent, who obtained 23 representatives;
• Más BNGheaded by Carlos Aymerich, who obtained 18 representatives, with the support of PNG-PG, ESG and Inzar;
• List of Encontroled by Xosé Manuel Beiras and driven by Encontro Irmandiño, with the support of Esquerda Nacionalista and Unidade Galega and Camilo Nogueira Román, who obtained seven representatives;
• and M ye Allah, led by Rafael Villar and driven by the Movemento Galego ao Socialismo, which obtained two representatives.

In the vote to the National Executive, Found Irmandiño did not show up and M ye Allah supported the ApU list, the final result being 1,189 votes (55.1 %) and eight representatives for the list headed by Guillerme Vázquez (PG six, one of M ye Allah and two independent), and 969 votes (44.9 %) and seven representatives for the list of Carlos Aymerich; thus, Guillerme Vázquez was elected national spokesman for the Nationalist Block Galego, replacing Anxo Quintana.

XIII National Assembly

On January 26, 2012, its XIII National Assembly was held, in which the leadership was elected, as well as its national spokesperson and its candidate for the Board. Three lists were presented: Alternativa pola Unidade (ApU), with the support of Unión do Povo Galego and with Guillerme Vázquez as spokesperson and Francisco Jorquera as candidate; a list headed by Máis Galiza and Encontro Irmandiño (+G-EI), with the support of Colectivo Socialista, Partido Nacionalista Galego-Partido Galeguista, Esquerda Nacionalista, Inzar, Unidade Galega and Espazo Socialista Galego, with Xosé Manuel Beiras as spokesperson and Carlos Aymerich for candidate; and a list from Movemento Galego ao Socialismo, headed by Rafael Vilar. Finally, Guillerme Vázquez was re-elected as national speaker with 2,123 votes against Xosé Manuel Beiras, with 1,823 votes; and Francisco Jorquera candidate for the presidency of the Board with 2,338 (53%) compared to the 2,043 votes (46%) obtained by Carlos Aymerich. The party executive was made up of seven members from ApU, seven from +G-EI and one from MGS; likewise, the vote of the National Council obtained 2,164 supports (48%) for ApU, 2,026 (45%) for +G-EI and 248 (5%) for MGS.

After the aforementioned assembly, due to internal and ideological tensions, parties such as Encontro Irmandiño and Esquerda Nacionalista decided to leave the Bloc. The Máis Galiza current, the second force with the most votes after UPG, and the Galician Nationalist Party-Galeguista Party held their own assemblies to decide their continuity, both opting to leave the BNG. However, a sector of Máis Galiza remained inside as an organized current.

XIV National Assembly

After the previous splits and its consequent drop in votes and seats in the 2012 Galician Parliament elections, going from twelve to seven deputies (compared to nine for Alternativa Galega de Esquerda), the BNG celebrated on March 17 In 2013, its XIV National Assembly, with a UPG with practically no internal opposition, Xavier Vence being elected national spokesperson with 95.82% of the votes, setting independence as the objective of the party. Said Assembly was attended by representatives of the Bloco de Esquerda, ERC, Sortu and Amaiur.

In the elections to the European Parliament on May 25, 2014, BNG and Euskal Herria Bildu formed the coalition Los Pueblos Deciden, together with Puyalón, Andecha Astur, Alternativa Nacionalista Canaria and Unidad del Pueblo. 326,464 votes (2.08%), which allowed him to obtain a MEP. As a result of the coalition agreement, the EH Bildu candidate Josu Juaristi would occupy the seat for the first three and a half years of the legislature and the BNG candidate Ana Miranda for the remaining year and a half.

In the 2015 Spanish general elections, the BNG ran in the Nós-Candidatura Galega electoral coalition in the four provinces of Galicia. The main formation of the coalition was the Galician Nationalist Bloc, accompanied by the Galician Party, the Galician Coalition, the Galician Communist Party and the Galician Obreira Front. He did not get representation.

Internal structure

BNG National Headquarters Building in Santiago de Compostela.

The BNG arose with the intention of bringing together the wide ideological range of Galician nationalism. From the beginning, various nationalist parties lived together with their own assemblies and their own general secretaries, as well as internal BNG currents as an organization and independent members of all these organizations. At present, these organized groups are:

• Union do Povo Galego (UPG): Party created in 1964 and co-founder of the BNG in 1982, is the majority organization in the BNG.
• Arredistan Movement: Independence Party created in 2021 from the re-establishment of the Movemento Galego ao Socialismo (MGS).
• Front Obreira Galega: Political party created in 2010 as the internal current of the BNG by militants close to the CIG of the Vigo area. From 2012 to 2014 he was integrated in Anova and in January 2017 he formalized his re-entry in the BNG.
• Opener-Democratic Esquerda Galega: Inner current created in 2012 by the former leader of Mos Galiza Carlos Aymerich, created to group members of this group who decided not to leave the BNG. Among the members of this new current are also former militants of the Socialist Collective, Inzar and Unity Galega as Ana Luisa Bouza, Xesús Veiga or Camilo Nogueira Román.
• Galiza Nova: Youth organization of the BNG created in 1988. He is a member of the EFAY, youths of the European Free Alliance.

Formerly Member Organizations

Other collectives and political parties also belonged to the BNG; most of whom decided to leave in 2012, some to join Compromiso por Galicia (CxG) and others in Anova-Irmandade Nacionalista.

Commitment to Galicia

• Galego-Partido Galeguista Nationalist Party (PNG-PG): BNG member political party since 1991. He separated from the BNG in 2012.
• Nationalist Esquerda (EN): BNG member political party from 1992 to 2012.
• Espazo Socialista Galego: A political party formed from members of EN and integrated into the BNG since its founding in 2008. Subsequently integrated in Miste Galiza, he decided to escape from the BNG.
• Méis Galiza: Internal current created in 2009 and constituted in party by the majority decision of his assembly held on 11 March 2012, in which his excision of the frentist organization is also agreed.

Anova-Irmandade Nacionalista

• Found Irmandiño: Internal Corriente led by Xosé Manuel Beiras, created in 2007 and staged in 2012.
• Movemento pola Base: Internal current formed in 2007 from members of the Union do Povo Galego (UPG) and the Inter-union Confederation Galega (CIG), who left the BNG in 2009.
• Communist Party of National Liberation (PCLN): UPG split party in 1986 and was expelled from the BNG in 1987 for asking for the vote for Herri Batasuna. He subsequently formed the Popular Front Galega (FPG), which collaborates with Anova-Irmandade Nacionalista.

Other

• Socialist Party Galego (PSG): A political party formed in 1975; it was one of the founders of the BNG in 1982, although in 1983 it decided to abandon it.
• Socialist Collective (CS): Scend formation of the PSG after the abandonment of the PSG, composed of those members favorable to remain in the Block.
• Inzar: Political organization formed in 1991 by the merger of the MC and the LCR; it was integrated into the BNG in 1993 as a recognized collective and dissolved in 2012.
• Unite Galega (UG): Leaded by Camilo Nogueira Román, it was originally a political party of the PSG-EG in 1991 and integrated into the BNG since 1994; in 2003 it dissolved as a party and became a current of internal opinion.
• Primeira Linha: Internal current created in 1996 and left the BNG in 1999 to later form Nós-Unidade Popular.

Evolution of the vote

Elections to the Parliament of Galicia

^a As a coalition of the Bloque Nacional-Popular Galego (BNPG) and the Partido Socialista Galego (PSG).

General Election

^a He ran as part of the Nós-Candidatura Galega together with the Galician Coalition, the Fronte Obreira Galega, the Partido Comunista do Povo Galego and the Partido Galeguista.
^b Held on April 28.
^c Held on November 10.

European Parliament elections

^a The coalition obtained 2 deputies; However, the BNG, which was in third place on the list, did not obtain representation after the Popular Party filed an appeal with the Central Electoral Board, which declared valid some votes not initially considered, therefore, by a margin of 167 votes, he conceded the seat to the PP. The Constitutional Court confirmed the ruling of the Central Electoral Board.
^b Europe of the Peoples - Greens established a system of proportional rotation among the first four candidates and those corresponding to parties that exceeded 40,000 votes in their autonomous community.
^c In the distribution of proportional rotation of positions of Los Pueblos Deciden, the BNG candidate corresponds to the final year and a half of the legislature.
^d Ahora Repúblicas proportional rotation of posts for the BNG candidate will depend on what happens with the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU, which will imply a new distribution of seats.

Municipal elections