text: The final issue that moved ETA towards continuing the armed struggle was the 1978 Spanish constitutional referendum. The new Spanish constitution was opposed by Basque nationalists as it was considered insufficient in terms of Basque autonomy, protection of the Basque language and providing Euskadi with no legal way towards achieving independence from Spain. Basque politicians decried the new constitution as "the continuing occupation of the Basque Country" and called for abstention from the constitutional referendum. As the result, the abstention rate in Euskadi was over 55%, and although 75% of Basque voters voted in favour of the new constitution, they represented only 31% of the Basque population. Because of this, "Euskadi remained the one region in the country in which a majority of the electorate did not support the foundational document of Spain’s democracy."
  In the 1980s, ETA(pm) accepted the Spanish government's offer of individual pardons to all ETA prisoners, even those who had committed violent crimes, who publicly abandoned the policy of violence. This caused a new division in ETA(pm) between the seventh and eighth assemblies. ETA VII accepted this partial amnesty granted by the now democratic Spanish government and integrated into the political party Euskadiko Ezkerra ("Left of the Basque Country").