50 years later, Vox sets the pace of Spanish politics

If just a decade ago, on the 40th anniversary of Francisco Franco's death, someone had told us that by the 50th anniversary a far-right political force that celebrates his legacy would be setting the pace of Spanish politics, we probably wouldn't have believed it. But that's exactly what's happening. On the eve of the dictator's fiftieth anniversary, Vox occupies the center of the Spanish political debate for several reasons, but the main one is that it is clearly influencing the actions of the main opposition party, the PP. The PP is currently negotiating with Vox to invest a new president of the Valencian Generalitat, and in five weeks, early elections will be held in Extremadura precisely because the president, María Guardiola, wants to stop depending on the far right. The president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, finds himself in a similar situation, having been left without a budget by Vox. But the fact is that all the actions of the PP's regional leaders, from Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who is holding elections in June, to Marga Prohens in the Balearic Islands, and including Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are carried out with one eye on Santiago Abascal's party, whether to seduce it or absorb it. And then there's the case of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who after three years as PP president has still not been able to define a clear party line for dealing with Vox. This leads him to endorse seemingly contradictory strategies, such as that of the Valencian PP, willing to adopt the far-right's positions to retain power, and those of Guardiola and Moreno Bonilla, who want to distance themselves. And there is still a third way, that of the Ayuso-Aznar tandem, which seeks to absorb Vox to reunify the right-wing space.

The multitude of viewpoints within the People's Party (PP) and Feijóo's lack of a clear stance contrast sharply with Vox's almost military-like structure, where there is only one leader and a political leadership, centralized in no more than five people, and where regional branches have no influence whatsoever. Abascal's party thus taps into the lingering legacy of Francoism, which remains very much alive in many parts of Spain, where the Franco era is longed for.I order and command And both territorial diversity and the inherent complexity of the democratic system are disregarded. Vox is not a normal party seeking to influence specific policies and enter governments either. Its ultimate goal is to replace the PP and seize control of the central government to implement its ideological program. And everything it does is always geared towards that end.

This is what makes the PP's relationship with Vox so complicated. All the current concessions may serve to maintain some seats, for example in Valencia, but in the long run they feed a beast that aspires to impose a retrograde model of society where Francoism is glorified and democratic rights eroded. And you have to be very short-sighted not to see it.