Fox From Government to Potential Collapse: The Failure of Franco’s New Supporters

The far-right Vox party, which in recent weeks had dreamed of entering triumphantly into a future government in Spain, had to deal with its first electoral blow in the past few hours.

The third most voted party, although Sumar’s party followed closely, its weight in Congress shrank. With 12.4% of the vote, he won 33 deputies, 19 fewer than in the 2019 elections (with 15.2%, he got 52).

Fox did not aspire to victory, but was indispensable to the People’s Party in achieving an absolute majority. The problem with this formation was twofold: its result was disappointing, but also that of the PP did not live up to the expectations of popularity. The sum of the two is far from the majority.

VOX leaderSantiago Abascal has been enjoying a possible entry into a future government since June. That month, after the local elections of May 28, many popular and far-right coalitions were born throughout Spain, in many municipalities and regions.

After seeing his party enter several regional and municipal governments, the ultra-conservative leader has already seen himself as deputy prime minister in a national government. He would have been the most right-wing executive born since the end of Franco’s dictatorship, an element that Italian Prime Minister Meloni would have liked very much, looking for new international alliances with weight to change the balance in European institutions.

All this is now very difficult. The resistance of progressive voters, which may have been mustered after seeing the birth of many local governments with the far-right at home, has reopened the game.

Vox’s discontent in the aftermath of the vote is exacerbated by the fact that the left-wing forces (PSOE and Sumar), despite being stuck with 153 deputies, have a better chance of governing than the right-wing bloc thanks to the likely and likely support of the Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties, the same parties that the ultra-conservative party would like to ban if it managed to govern.

“I want to hide myself What is the bad news for all Spaniards – commented the founder of Vox, Santiago Abascal, after the results – although Pedro Sanchez lost the elections, he could form a government with the votes of communism, coup, independence and terror », he added, referring, as usual, to the forces on the left of the Socialist Socialist Party and the Catalan and Basque parties.

Vox has long had Catalonia, which was born in 2013 as a breakaway from the People’s Party in stark contrast to the Rajoy line, which Abascal considered too soft on independence activists.

The Vox program also includes, in addition to suspending the autonomy of the Catalan region, the dismantling of the state of autonomy that has existed since the 1980s. Thus, the birth of a left-wing government thanks to regional powers would be the sovereign formation’s worst nightmare.

Do Not Enter In a national government, it risks losing its relevance and gradually swallowing up the People’s Party, a more realistic possibility if Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Autonomous Region of Madrid since 2019, arrives at the head of the main Spanish conservative party in the future. 2023).

His charisma and “Madrid-style tramping” may become a problem for Abascal’s men in the future, withdrawing his votes, just as they did in the Madrid area.

The loss of MPs to Vox also has more immediate consequences. The far-right party will no longer be able to file appeals of unconstitutionality to the Constitutional Court or even submit motions of no confidence in the government (it has submitted two from 2019 to today). And so the weapon that the ultra-conservative party has used so many times is missing.