“Far-Right Parties Are Rising to Power Around Europe. Is Spain Next?”
This is the alarm bell The New York Times sounded in a recent article on the run-up to elections in the country, scheduled for July 23rd.
What the media giant neglected to observe, though, is one demographic from which the Right is drawing support: the immigrant community. Highlighting the socialist (PSOE) and neo-communist (Unidos Podemos) parties’ resounding loss in the regional elections at the end of May, the newspaper warns that the possibility of a national coalition government involving VOX looms large. Indeed, even as the Partido Popular (PP) hopes to avoid a coalition, VOX is banking on having at least a seat or two in the next cabinet.
With VOX in the government, Spain would follow Italy, Sweden, and Finland where right-of-centre parties have seen electoral successes.
The current socialist-led government was the first national coalition government in Spain’s 40-year democratic history. It was formed from the legacy socialist party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), and the newcomer to its left, Unidos Podemos, espousing a Marxist ideology.
VOX was formed in 2014 as a break-off from the PP. It is, as one right-leaning voter recently told this writer, simply what the PP used to be in terms of conservative social policy on issues such as abortion and transgender rights. In the context of the flood of immigrants heading for Europe and increased worry about mission creep and overreach by EU institutions, it also stands out from the PP as a national-conservative, ‘euro-sceptic’ party.
Now, alongside Unidos Podemos (which formed the same year as VOX), and the longstanding Basque and Catalan nationalist parties with a handful of seats in the national parliament, regional parties have emerged, three of which gained a seat each in the last elections and whose support (or not) for the larger parties could prove crucial. They can often be persuaded to support either of the larger parties.
Spaniards are grappling with this reality, split between embracing a right-wing coalition government and hoping for a single-party centrist government. A recent poll found that 16% of voters preferred a single-party, PP-led government, and 14% a PP-VOX coalition government.
A significant portion of voters straddle the fence between PP and VOX. Not completely happy with either party, they hope they govern together to balance each other out.
Indeed, the corners that support VOX are surprising. Despite the party’s hard-line rhetoric against illegal immigration (though it supports legal immigration, particularly from Latin America) certain sections of the working class and immigrants are voting Right.
Migrant communities from Latin America have formed the group ‘Latinos for Abascal’—a reference to VOX’s president and founder, Santiago Abascal.
“Many of the Ibero-Americans who came to Spain in search of a better job have fled from countries turned into dictatorships by the Left, by the partners of socialism, and Pedro Sánchez,” they affirm.
The support reflects VOX’s work to affirm the cultural connection between Spain and Latin America, as well as its efforts to form an international counterweight to the communist coalitions of The Sao Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group.
“We call for a vote for VOX, the only party that stood up to Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, two launderers of narco-socialism, when they came to Spain,” they conclude.
The world will be watching Spain on July 23rd to see how all the wildcards of the country’s politics play out.
