Spain is in political crisis after the center-right People’s Party won the most seats in Sunday’s election but did not necessarily secure leadership of the country.
Although the party was victorious, it has far from the number of seats needed to form a government even in a coalition with the populist right-wing VOX party, meaning that socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez may yet remain in power.
Expectations going into the July 23 election were that a conservative-populist coalition of the two right-wing parties would be able to form a government, but VOX appears to have performed below expectations, per USA Today.
Voters’ concerns with bread-and-butter issues like jobs and the cost of living hurt VOX, which focused on anti-immigration and anti-feminist messaging, according to USA Today.
Since the two right-wing parties together would control 169 seats in parliament, they would still need seven more seats to form a government. Potentially, this presents an opportunity for the Catalonian separatist Junts per Catalunya (“Together for Catalonia”) party to play kingmaker.
On the surface, this looks like a natural fit for the center-right party of Catalonian nationalists. However, VOX is staunchly anti-separatist, calling for the outlawing of parties that advocate for a breakup of Spain, according to Breitbart.
Junts could be lured into backing Sánchez in exchange for unspecified concessions, Breitbart reported. Junts leader Miriam Noguera said, “We will not make Sánchez prime minister for nothing.”
For Sánchez’s left-of-center coalition to remain in power, Junts would have to abstain from voting in the first round of parliament’s government formation, per Breitbart. If Junts vote against both the left and right efforts to form a government, it would precipitate a new election.
In the wake of what turned out to be disappointing results for his party, VOX leader Santiago Abascal accused establishment media of fomenting fears based on falsehoods that his party was trying to revive fascism and comparing it to the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco, reported Breitbart.
Abascal denies the accusation that his party is far-right and has declared that the VOX agenda is “antifascist, anti-Nazi, and anticommunist,” per Breitbart.
VOX advocates for policies that reject the “multiculturalism” that it says has been “unsuccessful in countries like Belgium, France or the United Kingdom,” Breitbart reported. The party has called for a national referendum on immigration and deportation and for dealing more severely with rapists, sexual offenders, pedophiles, and child pornography.
The party has been critical of the incumbent government’s immigration policy, which it attributes to a globalist agenda.
“Pedro Sánchez and his government have been allies and promoters of all globalist policies and multiculturalism that bet on the disorderly arrival of millions of illegal immigrants. The consequences have not been suffered by those who have imposed these policies from their offices and mansions with private security, but by Spanish families who suffer insecurity and degradation in their neighbourhoods,” the party said, per Breitbart.
VOX has also vowed to pursue a pro-family agenda by instituting a lower value-added tax for families purchasing their first home and abolishing income tax for families earning less than €70,000 (approx. $77,530) a year that have four or more children, as reported by Breitbart.