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Borja Sémper: “The PP is not a sect, pussy,” Borja Sémper: “If populism, reactionary creeps up on us, not pinto’s nothing in politics,”
Borja Sémper, a spokesman of the PP in the basque Parliament and city council of San Sebastian, which account for more than 25 years —just turned 44 and thought many times of leaving the policy. It was when he was offered jobs outside the Basque country, it worried his parents by death threats and was always accompanied by two escorts, which this Tuesday, excited in his farewell, he thanked “to be alive”. It is now disenchanted with the political landscape and excited by the offer of Ernst & Young to be the director of institutional relations when he decided to say goodbye to “a passion” and two “dreams”: to be mayor of San Sebastián and the minister of Culture.
Question . In the past year by these dates said in an interview in this newspaper: “If populism, reactionary creeps up on us, not pinto anything in politics”. Why leave now?
Answer . It has been an accumulation of circumstances, mostly family and a professional offer a very stimulating. And do not has helped me to continue to see how the policy walks a road that is not edifying, that transcends initials and surname. What we are doing cannot be called politics with a capital. I am not a block, but I think that the defense of positions and criticism of others is compatible with education and respect. The discrepancy must be accompanied by the search of meeting points. But now no one asks at what point to converge with the other so that this is not going to take per bag.
Q. What would be left if the ETA remained active?
A. No, because that would be to capitulate to totalitarianism.
In the video, the profile of Borja Sémper, the free verse of the policy. Video: EPV
Q. What we said at home when at 17 years old, reported that afiliaba the PP?
A. I Come from a humble family in which the policy was not present. My parents had an enormous generosity, which I doubt that I would be able to play with my children, because at that time in the Basque country to be of PP or of the PSOE carried a risk of physical. That affect their lives.
Q. ETA has been very present in the debate of investiture eight years after cessation of definitive violence. What justified such a presence in the speeches?
A. on the one hand it is justified because the footprint of terrorism is still very fresh. On the other, thumping the presence of ETA because it is as if we did not know win, as if we had forgotten that the rule of law defeated. The parents of that defeat are the forces and bodies of security of the State, the judiciary, the PP and the PSOE. A serene reflection, that now not, to decide how we treat an organization as EH Bildu proud of your role and aims to provide lessons from the Congress.
Q. is Not a triumph of the rule of law that EH Bildu is in the system and to condemn the violence in their statutes?
A. it Is obvious that the system gains when the anti-establishment down with the system requirements. On the other hand, it is legitimate for the system to require those who wanted to fight it an exercise of humility to analyze her past. In theoretical terms it is a victory, in practice they do not make it easy.
Q. what Is most difficult political moment today that when ETA killed as has been said Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo?
R . Obviously, do not.
Q. What would you have provided by the PP and the policy?
A. has given a meaning to my life, an epic, also baths of reality. I think that it could have been much more sectarian and dogmatic if I would have devoted to something else. The policy has made me flexible.
Q. the inverse of the current moment, with the extremism on the rise.
A. we Lived in such extreme circumstances that we reduce the scandal by the discrepancy of what was truly scandalous. To me it costs me, and that’s probably why is not good for the current policy, come up against certain politicians of the PSOE because I shared with them the fear of being killed, the same desire for survival.
Q. The foundation of Aznar criticizes Sanchez for taking on “the language” of the pro-independence. He referred to ETA as MLNV (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco).
A. I opened the meat when I heard Aznar speak of MLNV. I also remember the wonder of when Jaime mayor Oreja came to ETA prisoners. What I always thought is that there was a reason of State. Each one has to ride with its contradictions, Aznar also. And recognize that I legitimate to criticize Sanchez when I think that it is adopting a language that again causes me to wonder. We cannot censor the opponent and be benevolent with the same to similar facts.
Q. Cristóbal Montoro complained in an interview in THE COUNTRY of which the parties were dwarfed to make domes in the image and likeness of their leaders. Would you share it?
A. If desprestigiamos the policy, the become a space of confrontation, no one will want to come. The PP is not a sect. I have given opinions that have bothered the leaders of my party and I have continued to exercise the policy. Yes there is a trend unstoppable, beyond the PP, PSOE, or Podemos, to convert the games in places that if someone qualifies, it is a crisis. But it’s healthy, unless someone has so many resorts that translate into fears that it exists. On the other hand, it would be very ventajista for me to say what I think and then complain about the consequences.
Q. Tell me a political party that admire.
A. Gregorio Ordóñez (PP council member killed by ETA in 1995 he received when he was 17 and was to join).
Q. And what about another party?
A. Ramón Jáuregui (PSOE).
Q. A frustration.
R . It hurts Me very much that after what we did with ETA, without it, the PP will suffer electorally.
Q. To what do you attribute this lack of electoral support for the PP basque?
R . It is an accumulation of circumstances. Our opponents also play, make strategies, take advantage of opportunities. Our opponent here is the PNV, not the PSOE. Because the shaft in the Basque Country is not left or right, but momodels of society: the model based on essentialism, on the one hand, and the model of a Basque Country aware of its uniqueness but that it is used to contribute to the development of Spain. Comparrtiendo part of the economic model and probably social aspects, that axis of identity is the one that the PP basque to be overcome, so that we do not divide between nationalists and non-nationalists, which is already well of support to politicians who force us to say if we want more dad or mom. I have to explain that I’ve been deputy mayor of a socialist because the PP basque was agreed to govern Municipalities with the PSOE. And not what I did because it was a dangerous centrist. María San Gil was also deputy mayor, Odón Elorza, although some of the PP and PSOE want to forget.
Q. how These pacts can be repeated?
A. No, because fortunately the fight is not in that key. But it would be very interesting that the PP and the PSOE share an inclusive vision in the Basque Country, and renew their vows constitutional, not a specific item, but what’s fundamental: the equality between spaniards, the harmony… Not what I see in the medium term.
Q. What would you have said the members of the PP who have left the policy in the last year? Have you been given any advice? [Mariano Rajoy and Soraya Saenz de Santamaria communicated with him]
A. I have been advertised that it comes a wonderful life in which you will be distressed by the impact on the public of anything you say. (he laughs). With all the hardships, pursue the policy it has been a privilege and I can only be agredecido, to my party and to the opponents. I would do it again a thousand times.
