Feijóo embraced until recently the clean law that he now sees as "electoral engineering" by Sánchez

BarcelonaPedro Sánchez is not exactly preparing a "tupinada", but rather designing through "electoral engineering" a plan to win the next state elections thanks to the vote from abroad. This is the thesis defended by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who this Tuesday wanted to place the Popular Party one step below Vox in the accusations of future electoral fraud that both parties have been fueling for some time. Feijóo, who was interviewed by the media outlet La7 Región de Murcia, thus specified his words on Monday on esRadio, where he openly criticized that the so-called "law of the clean" – a provision included in the law of democratic memory – is designed to alter the electoral roll in favor of the PSOE.

The popular leader's attitude, however, contrasts with the one he himself had a few years ago. In fact, which is reflected in the PP's current electoral program, which promoted safeguarding the nationalizations of descendants of Spanish citizens. "The community of descendants of Spaniards will maintain the right to opt for Spanish nationality, guaranteed by a reformed law on access to nationality for grandchildren," states point 344 of the program. Popular sources, in fact, explain that they were not even against the provision added to the memory law at the outset, and what they complain about now, they point out without concrete examples, is how the naturalization process for these individuals is being managed.

Monday, Feijóo did not talk about reforming this law – the PP proposes to repeal the memory law – but another one, the nationality law, to toughen the conditions for people who have never resided in the State. "We will have to ask for a series of additional requirements to give a passport to a person who has never been to Spain," he said in an interview on esRadio. This proposal is indeed new, it is not part of the electoral program, but it is more coherent with the PP's current moment. Several PSOE ministers recalled on X what Feijóo said a few years ago when he visited the capital of Argentina.

In 2022, for example, he advocated for the promotion of a nationality law for grandchildren of Spaniards in exile and, going further back, in November 2006, he exclaimed that the Spanish government at the time – Zapatero's PSOE – should explain to the descendants of Spaniards: "Let them explain why a grandchild or a child who has the right to Spanish nationality cannot have it, but North Africans, Eastern Europeans, or anyone without Spanish blood can have it."

Now, the popular leader's proposal has changed and he claims not only to verify that all the requirements to access nationality are met, but also to assess "the impact it will have on the electoral roll". Feijóo said that according to his data – he has not explained where he got it from – more than 650,000 nationality applications have been registered in Buenos Aires.

Other members of the popular leadership have also deployed this line of argument and have raised doubts about the procedure for granting Spanish nationality through the grandchildren's law. Deputy Secretary Juan Bravo has denounced that this is a "modification of the electoral roll like none seen in the history of Spain" and has assured that it is being done in a "doubtful" way. In an interview on Antena 3, Bravo pointed to alleged "anomalies" that "can affect specific provinces, manipulated in a specific way." Again, without any concrete data to support the suspicions.

For some time now, the PP has subscribed to the theory that the vote from abroad could alter the next Spanish elections, with the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, championing this battle. But it is Vox who most uninhibitedly speaks of the "rigging" that, they say, the PSOE is preparing. Just as Trump did in the elections he lost against Joe Biden in 2020, the Spanish far-right believes that Pedro Sánchez is preparing a "slow-motion coup d'état" through the "clean-up law". The spokesperson for Vox in Congress, José María Figaredo, has gone so far as to estimate that the PSOE could win 10 to 15 seats thanks to the increase in the electoral roll abroad. Calculations that he has not based on any study of the situation. In the last state elections, the vote from abroad changed one seat: the one the PP won from the PSOE in Madrid.

The paradigm of Cuba

The popular spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia García, has directed some suspicions towards the alleged "outsourcing" of the granting of nationality "through Cuban companies linked to the regime". "Doesn't that make you suspicious?", she asked, without providing proof of the alleged irregularities. She also remarked that her party is "concerned" and that therefore "it must be analyzed rigorously".

Figaredo has joined in, who, with the argument of alleged irregularities in Cuba, announced that Vox has sent a letter to the Central Electoral Board (JEC) requesting the suspension of postal voting for voters abroad. This would oblige them to exercise their right to vote in person at embassies or consulates. A situation that, in fact, is already the most common in Cuba, where practically no postal votes are counted for general elections, as explained in a recent report by the digital media in a recent report by the digital media The Objective.