The legislative elections on Sunday July 23, in Spain, are important not only for the future of this country, but also for that of Europe. The defeat of the Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, could allow the far-right Vox party, which brings together small-scale demagogues, to acquire real parliamentary power. Furthermore, if, as expected, Vox and the People’s Party (PP) – conservative – form a coalition government, the distancing of far-right politicians, a tradition that has continued since the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1975.
If Vox were to participate in the Spanish government, its chilling, hypernationalist, anti-LGBT+, anti-feminist and anti-immigration agenda would plunge Europe further into a right-wing abyss. Surrender to the party by centre-right conservatives, who usually rejected far-right alliances but are desperate to return to power, would have repercussions across the continent, not least because Spain holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union until December 31.
This rapprochement between the conservative parties and the extreme right resulted in an electoral campaign dominated by culture wars. Vox’s outrageous propaganda demonizes immigrants, gays and feminists, while portraying Sanchez and his party as enemies of the state. Isabel Diaz Ayuso (PP), president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, called her political opponents “Communists”. Seeking to rekindle memories of anticlerical violence across Spain before and during the Civil War, she even accused the opposition of wanting to burn down Catholic churches.
In response, Pedro Sanchez called the elections, which follow Spain’s Socialist Workers’ Party’s poor showing in local and regional elections in May, an existential battle for the future of Spanish democracy. As the election campaign draws to a close, former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said, for his part, that “the center right no longer exists”that only the far right exists and that, with the center abandoned, the PP “came off the political map”. Ayuso has already responded to these attacks using an equally firm tone: “When people call you a fascist, you know you’re doing something right. »
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