19th March 2024
Vox Party
Barcelona News Catalonia News Madrid News Main News

General Election focus: the Vox party

Spain has its own version of the far-right and the populist turned mainstream, part of a wave that has been surging through Europe: Vox, a relative newcomer on the political field, harking back to what it defines as old Spanish values.

Its campaign motto for the 28 April general election is ‘For Spain’. This rallying cry plays into the party’s ultra-nationalist rhetoric, with speeches and videos including frequent references to what they see as the country’s past grandeur.

ALSO READ: Rise of far-right unsettles Spain’s mainstream right

This includes the glorification of the ‘Reconquista, a conflict lasting almost 800 years and resulting in the fall of 8th-century Muslim territories to Christian Kingdoms, and the Moors – and other minorities – being driven out of the Iberian peninsula.

Vox’s platform is most notably based on extreme anti-immigration and radical anti-feminism policies. They’ve also built an image as staunchly pro-Spanish unity, not only by criticising the Catalan independence movement, but by actively fighting it.

ALSO READ: Trial focus: ‘popular prosecution has no equivalent elsewhere in EU’

Indeed, Vox’s secretary general and lawyer, Javier Ortega Smith, is one of the two members acting as ‘popular prosecutors‘ in the Catalan trial against jailed pro-independence leaders. Vox has also used the high visibility of the trial to amplify its image ahead of the elections.

Both Ortega Smith and Santiago Abascal, the Vox party’s president, advocate proposals including elimination of devolved powers, the defence of bullfighting, the abolition of the historical memory law, and populist measures such as dramatic lowering of taxes.

ALSO READ: Spain’s right and far-right unite at Madrid rally

Vox Party
Santiago Abascal (3rd left), leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, and the Vox leader for the Andalusia region, Francisco Serrano (2nd left), pose with party members after giving a press conference in Sevilla on 3 December 2018. (Jorge Guerrero / AFP)

Vox also frequently urges for the current Catalan president, Quim Torra, to be imprisoned. In an act in Barcelona, Abascal proclaimed that the party would push for [Torra’s] arrest via the prosecutor, putting him in the hands of the judiciary. ‘The only thing we’ll offer him will be a fair trial,’ he proclaimed, vowing to ‘suspend [Catalonia’s] autonomy, and take over its government.’

ALSO READ: Far-right win rocks Spanish politics

Chants to detain politicians is not the only similarity between Vox and current USA president Donald Trump. The party’s pledge is to ‘make Spain great again’ by also banning parties and organisations ‘that pursue the destruction of the Nation’s territorial unity and sovereignty.’

Vox also favours putting Spanish above Spain’s other co-official languages, getting rid of the Catalan police (the Mossos d’Esquadra), and repealing the historical memory law, aimed at recognising the victims of the Spanish Civil War.

ALSO READ: Casado opens door to governing with far-right Vox

Vox broke into mainstream politics in the Andalusian parliament in January this year, heralding a steady rise in the polls for the party, predicting that, for the first time in 40 years, a far-right party may again have a chance at entering the Spanish congress.

ALSO READ: Poll: far-right would win 43-45 seats [Jan 2019]

According to Spain’s CIS public research institute, Vox could come out of the elections with 29 to 34 seats in Congress, 3-4 of them coming from Catalan constituencies.

There is additionally some speculation that they could be part of a potential right-wing government, in a majority-security alliance with Ciudadanos (Cs) and the People’s Party (PP). The three parties have appeared together before, notably at a demonstration in Plaza Colón, or Columbus square in Madrid, to speak out against dialogue with Catalonia.

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the PSOE party

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the Podemos party

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the PP party

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the Ciudadanos (Cs) party

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party

ALSO READ: General Election focus: the Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) party

Recent Posts

Prison staff continue protests in Catalonia after colleague killed

News Desk

Spanish police arrest 3 over deaths of 5 migrants forced out of smugglers’ boat

News Desk

Real Madrid asks Spanish prosecutors to investigate more racist chants at Vinícius

News Desk

Controversial Amnesty Law passed in Congress, will now proceed to Senate

News Desk

Catalan president dissolves parliament and calls for early election on 12 May

News Desk

Spanish police dismantle burglary gang that targeted footballers’ homes

News Desk

Leave a Comment