The far-right's strategy to erode institutions
Although the People's Party insists actively and passively that Vox is a party like any other to justify their pacts with them, reality shows every day that this is not the case. The incident staged by deputy José María Sánchez in the Congress of Deputies, in which he climbed the podium to shout at the then acting president of the chamber, Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, at a distance of a few centimeters, had not been seen in the chamber throughout the democratic period. And perhaps the closest thing to it was on February 23, as recalled by the socialist Patxi López.
De Celis explained that, in those seconds that the shouting lasted, he feared for his physical integrity. Before that, the Vox deputy had already confronted a clerk of the Congress and had prevented the normal development of the plenary session with his shouts from the bench. All parties except Vox, the PP, and UPN have signed a text of repudiation that could not be read in the chamber precisely because unanimity is required. And now the parties on the board are studying formulas to extend the expulsion of the deputy, which for now only has effects in the current plenary session.
But the fundamental issue is not the attitude of a specific deputy, but whether these intimidating attitudes, which are a clear lack of institutional respect, are part of a strategy or are isolated cases. The answer is very simple: Vox has played from the beginning to violate institutions from within, in the same way that its allies do in other parts of the world. From Donald Trump to Javier Milei, the strategy of the global far-right shares two elements that were seen in this incident. On the one hand, the intimidation of the adversary, be it through insults or aggressive attitudes like Sánchez's. On the other hand, the erosion of parliamentary norms as a way to end institutions.
Because Sánchez's case, who moreover is a judge on leave, is not the first. Let's remember cases like that of Gabriel Le Senne, president of the Balearic Parliament, who tore up photographs of three victims of Francoism during a plenary session. It is also no coincidence that most of these incidents, like Tuesday's, occur when issues of historical memory or the Civil War are being debated.
The arrival of Vox in institutions has not only led to a degradation of parliamentary life, but has also undermined consensus on issues such as gender violence and normalized hateful and racist discourses from rostrums and seats. Faced with this, what remains most worrying is the temporizing attitude of a PP that prefers to look the other way and not join the rest of the forces in the democratic bloc in condemning these incidents. Downplaying these episodes will only further embolden those who play at being anti-system as a method to reach power and, once there, impose their "system", which we all know what it is, on others.
