The transversal axis of the far right: from the Carlist heritage to xenophobia

BarcelonaIn the next municipal elections, as always, there will be movements on the electoral map. One of those that can already be clearly anticipated is the emergence of Aliança Catalana (AC) in many town halls, which will significantly alter the map of majorities. The far-right formation already made an appearance in 2023 with the mayorship of Ripoll, and some lists in other places. But if we pay attention to the trajectory indicated by the 2024 Parliament elections, what the polls say, and what the party's progressive territorial expansion suggests, that was just the beginning. With the data we have today, we can practically take for granted that next year the xenophobic party will have representation and an important role in many municipalities.

Looking at the support for AC in 2024, we see a map that roughly corresponds to the transversal axis between Lleida and Girona. It is what someone called, half-seriously and half-jokingly, the Catalan "fuet belt", due to the importance of the pig sector in these territories. Aliança is a phenomenon centered in Ripollès, where it exceeded 25% of the vote in 2024, and it is expanding from this core. After Ripollès come regions such as Garrotxa, Pla d'Urgell, Alt Empordà, Osona, Berguedà, Urgell, Pla de l'Estany, and Noguera. In all of them, AC exceeded 10% of the vote, or nearly so. In contrast, for different reasons, Terra Alta, Barcelonès, Aran, and Baix Llobregat were the territories where it had less electoral penetration.

Although we do not yet know how the vote for AC will be distributed in 2027, if we extrapolate from what the polls from the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió suggest, we can expect the map to be more or less the same, but with greater intensity everywhere. A projection model suggests that in territories where Aliança was above 10% in 2024, it would now approach or exceed 20% of the vote. And it could exceed or be close to 15% in places where it has not had much penetration until now, such as Pallars Jussà or Alt Camp, among others. Nevertheless, these are models for parliamentary elections, and in municipal elections, local dynamics carry significant weight, so there will be exceptions: places where Aliança will grow more than we would expect and others where it may have more difficulty prospering. Its ability to form lists and find attractive candidates, and the reaction capacity of other parties, will be decisive in ultimately shaping the municipal map of the Catalan far-right.

A map that comes from behind

This "transversal axis" which is now emerging as the main area of influence for Silvia Orriols' party is a territory where conservative Catalan nationalist votes had traditionally been more hegemonic. However, it does not exactly correspond to the historical map of convergent implantation. CiU represented a much more complex sociopolitical space, with significant penetration in many other areas of the country, including coastal ones and the more affluent areas of the metropolitan region.

political scientist Marc Sanjaume described in this same newspaperHow can we interpret this correlation? Carlism was a complex and somewhat multifaceted sociopolitical movement. Although its origin was a dynastic conflict, Carlism was fundamentally a reactionary and anti-modern movement, opposed to the new liberal order, a defender of traditions, a hierarchical society, and conservative Catholicism. It was also the expression of community closure by traditional sectors in the face of a changing world.

Now, more than 100 years later, the old map is re-emerging. Obviously, the continuities between the two historical moments are very relative, and perhaps this map is more of a curiosity than anything else. But perhaps there is some subterranean historical thread that has passed underneath, through a very conservative nationalism, and which is now re-emerging with an instinct for withdrawal and a wary eye towards a world that, now, as in the late 19th century, is undergoing a process of accelerated change.

Contemporary factors

In any case, as is logical, the most contemporary factors have more weight in explaining the voting map in AC. The factor that seems most correlated with its growth is the collapse of support for the pro-independence parties that led the "Procés". Where Junts (especially), the CUP, and ERC lost more support is also where AC grew the most. It is, probably, what the political scientist Marc Sanjaume described in this same newspaper as the "post-Procés void", and the lack of national horizons that the far-right is now trying to occupy.

Curiously, however, the presence of immigration does not seem to be a relevant explanatory factor in itself. In the places where AC achieved better results, there is no greater presence of people with foreign nationality, nor do we detect a greater presence (neither absolute nor relative) of immigration from the African continent. Obviously, without immigration there are no anti-immigration parties, but there is no automatic correlation between one and the other. Political mechanisms must be activated to feed and channel discontent in this direction.

In other countries, socioeconomic and territorial factors have been pointed to to explain the rise of the far right: it is the story of "left-behind places" (places that have been left behind) that we have heard to explain, for example, the rise of Trumpism in the United States. In this dimension, however, the story is more nuanced. At first glance, it might seem that it could not be applied: the territories where Aliança has grown the most are not particularly depressed areas, and in surveys, we do not yet see that Aliança voters are people in complex socioeconomic situations.

However, it is true that the territories of the transversal axis have been somewhat left behind by the economic modernization of the Barcelona area and are suffering a certain process of deindustrialization, more pronounced than in other coastal areas. The story of the "fuet belt" does not seem central, but there is a certain correlation between the municipalities with the highest density of pig farms and the growth of Aliança. This could be a geographical coincidence, or it could be related to the type of social and economic dynamics that move around this sector.

There are also factors of urban configuration that seem to be correlated with the growth of Aliança, such as the loss of commercial fabric shown by the data. Where Aliança grows the most is where more businesses have closed in recent years. There are also trends that are more difficult to capture here, but that could be related, such as the degradation of historic neighborhoods or a certain displacement of population from some county capitals to surrounding municipalities.

In any case, what the maps suggest is that Aliança would achieve a fairly broad territorial presence. And it would be reinforced where it already appeared two years ago, which largely coincides with the map of Carlist Catalonia. For the moment, it seems that political factors are what best explain this xenophobic phenomenon, practically unprecedented in Catalan tradition. But there are socioeconomic elements and urban transformations that are feeding the discontent that the radical right is now channeling.

Other relevant maps