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.

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.

[4] Damián participated in the crackdown of the Asturian miners' strike of 1934 and later enrolled to the Euzko Gudarostea at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

[10] In 1961, he joined Euzko Gaztedi (EGI), the youth wing of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), both of which at the time were outlawed by Francoist Spain.

[10][14] In January 1965, at the local festivals of a town, a group of young people, including some members of EGI were arrested for playing the txistu and the drum, instruments typical of Basque folklore that represented opposition to the Francoist dictatorship.

For a short time, he stayed in a shack with a couple members of the Communist Party of Spain, and he then hid in a house close to Bilbao for a month.

Eventually, he was chosen to lead the candidacy of the PNV in Modragón at the 1979 local election and became the first democratically-elected mayor of the town after commanding a majority of 11 seats out of the 21 in the city council.

[19] While mayor of Mondragón, he was offered to lead the PNV's list for Gipuzkoa ahead of the 1982 Spanish general election and to become minister of Labour in the first government of Carlos Garaikoetxea, both of which he declined.

Subsequently, the EAJ/PNV's Central Executive Branch (Euzkadi Buru Batzar, EBB) proposed a shortlist of three possible successors: former EAJ/PNV president Xabier Arzalluz, Vice Lehendakari Mario Fernández and Ardanza.

[23][22] During this legislature, Ardanza achieved one of his most important milestones in his administration: the Agreement for the Pacification and Normalisation of Euskadi (Anju Eria Pact [es]) in 1988.