A danger to democracy in Spain was demonstrated this week when the country’s conservative party, Vox – the third largest in the national parliament – launched its campaign for Madrid’s 4 May regional election in the working-class neighbourhood of Vallecas, in the south of the Spanish capital.
Vallecas – or Vallekas, as the leftist anti-system groups endearingly refer to it – is often romanticised as a bulwark of ‘anti-fascist’ resistance by the Spanish Left.
In an ominous statement, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE)(former centre-right) along with the Chávez-inspired Podemos plus its breakaway Más Madrid called Vox’s presence in Vallecas a ‘provocation’ and voiced support for the ‘symbolic’ actions of anti-Vox protests which they suggested ‘did not coincide’ with the election campaign launch.
The statement called on supporters not to respond to Vox’s ‘provocations’ – to avoid the risk of what the leftists routinely call the ‘far-right’ using any incident to their electoral advantage.
Not unexpectedly, dozens, if not hundreds of radical and violent young leftist militants took to the streets to protest against the Vox presence – perfectly reflecting the logic of their political representatives that the Right (which they deem to be fascist whenever it threatens their hegemony) should stay away from certain areas the Left claims monopoly over. This, despite Vox getting 12 percent of the vote, twice the score of Más Madrid, in Vallecas in the last regional election.
The Vox campaign launch kicked off before dusk with its supporters and leaders surrounded by a mob shouting death threats and slogans dating from the Spanish Civil War, and hurling bricks, stones and bottles at their opponents, some of whom were injured. A national MP of the party ended up in hospital, and 20 riot police were injured.
Undeterred, Vox candidate to Madrid regional’s presidency Rocío Monasterio called the demonstrators cowards, thanked the party’s supporters for their bravery in attending the event, and assured the crowd that her party had no intention of surrendering to the Left’s bullying antics.
Democratic right
A visibly indignant Vox national leader Santiago Abascal took the floor next. Holding up some of the projectiles flung at them, Abascal charged the minister of the interior, PSOE’s Fernando Marlaska, as being responsible for allowing the leftists’ attempt to disrupt the campaign event. Asserting Vox’s democratic right to express their opinions anywhere in the country, Abascal declared that he and his supporters would not budge until the minister ordered the riot police to disperse the crowd.
Vox national MP Macarena Olona called Marlaska – formerly a respected judge, but recently slammed in a court ruling for unlawfully firing a Guardia Civil colonel – personally to demand that he fulfil his constitutional obligations. The minister did not respond to Olona’s call, but clearly realising he was now under the spotlight, did clear part of the square of violent protesters.
By taking to the streets in places like Vallecas, Vox has shown the dangers facing Spain’s democracy. Moreover, by singling out of the personal responsibility of the minister in a debacle that could have cost lives, Vox exposed the disastrous consequences of the capture of public institutions by politicians with self-serving sectarian agendas.
Unfortunately, the impact of what happened in Vallecas will be limited. Most of the Spanish media once again treated the leftist, government-sanctioned harassment of Vox as an incident arising from attention-seeking elements from both sides. We don’t expect much either from the European Union, always ready to denounce the threats to democracy when they come from the Eastern Europe and from the Right (hence, the constant condemnations of Hungary and Poland) and ever complacent in the face of the authoritarianism demonstrated by the socialists and far leftists governing Spain.
But, more and more, Spaniards are opening their eyes to the ugly reality exposed by situations such as the one we saw on Wednesday evening in Vallecas. And for that we owe Vox our gratitude.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend