José Antonio Ardanza

José Antonio Ardanza Garro (10 June 1941 – 8 April 2024) was a Spanish politician who became the second elected ''Lehendakari'' (President of the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain) after the approval of the Statute of Autonomy. He was in office between 1985 and 1999.

He was a member of the Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ/PNV). During his mandate, which was the longest for a lehendakari in democracy, he achieved the development of the Statute of Autonomy, the reindustrialization of the territory, the maintenance of good relations with Navarra, the territorial deployment of the Ertzaintza and promoted the Ajuria Enea pact in 1988, which at that time became the broadest political agreement to confront the terrorist group ETA and pacify the Basque Country, which during Ardanza's mandate the group killed more than three hundred people and which in 1998 announced the unsuccessful indefinite truce after the Estella pact. Provided by Wikipedia