Maite Aranburu Olabarrieta is a Spanish

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

politician who served in the

Basque Parliament The Basque Parliament ( Basque: ''Eusko Legebiltzarra'', Spanish: ''Parlamento Vasco'') is the legislative body of the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain and the elected assembly to which the Basque Government is responsible. The Parliament ...

from 2005 until 2009, representing the Biscay constituency as a member of the

Communist Party of the Basque Homelands The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands ( eu, Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista, EHAK; es, Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas, PCTV) was a communist Basque separatist party in the Basque Country, Spain. The party was outlawed b ...

Biography

Maite Aranburu Olabarrieta, a web manager and the leader of the

(EHAK), was elected to the

following the 2005 Basque regional election. Elected to represent the Biscay constituency, she campaigned on a pro-independence platform, vowed to give a voice to the recently banned political party

Batasuna Batasuna (; en, Unity) was a Basque nationalist political party. Based mainly in Spain, it was banned in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money. The party is included in the "European Union ...

, and refused to condemn the terrorist activities of

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

. Eight other EHAK candidates were also elected, a "surprise" performance for the recently formed party. In parliament, Aranburu sat as a member of the Left Nationalist Group and was a member of the Committee on Women and Youth. EHAK was officially banned in 2008, forcing Aranburu and the other deputies to sit as members of a different party. Aranburu left parliament in 2009. Later that year, Aranburu was forced to testify before a judge of the who was investigating the relationship between EHAK "with the alleged crimes of collaboration with a terrorist organization, illegal association, fraud of subsidies and embezzlement of public funds ... to contribute to the activity and allegedly terrorist purposes of Batasuna-ETA".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aranburu, Maite Year of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Members of the 8th Basque Parliament Women members of the Basque Parliament Basque women in politics 21st-century Spanish women politicians Communist Party of the Basque Homelands politicians