The war of the 'four fantastic' of Vox against Abascal

BarcelonaThe expulsion of Javier Ortega Smith was the trigger that has allowed Vox's critics to light the fuse against the leadership. The definitive coup de grâce was on February 18, when the party kicked out the former Madrid leader, who, this time, has decided to go to war that he avoided during the January 2024 congress. This rebellion was followed by the Murcian leader, José Ángel Antelo, after the leadership offered him to be a regional candidate on the condition that he leave the provincial presidency, which he did not accept and was expelled from the group with an expediente to be eliminated. Vox's former spokesperson Iván Espinosa de los Monteros –who stepped down in August 2023 and already launched a foundation to influence last September–, joined in, activating the call for an extraordinary congress. And the resignation of the former Castilian-Leonese vice-president Juan García-Gallardo has also been added, who stepped down in February of last year. A series of movements that show the critics' offensive against the leadership of Santiago Abascal.

• If you want to investigate the infographic in more detail, open the high-resolution version in another tab.

Ortega Smith, Antelo, Espinosa de los Monteros and García-Gallardo are the fantastic four who are trying to shake up the party. They are shooting at the millions that Vox sends to the Tizona communication group and making accusations – which the party fully denies – implying corruption or lack of ethics by Abascal and his circle to "get rich". Also to his wife, for having invoiced from a company linked to two key Vox advisors. They also lash out at the millions the party allocates to the party's foundation, Disenso, or criticize the purges that the leadership has driven. However, they also intend to reverse the ideological drift of recent years of Vox because they consider that there are incompatible approaches: Espinosa has claimed a "reformist" project, even of the "centre-right" and "liberal", mirroring Giorgia Meloni; and García-Gallardo has defended the radicality of "remigration" and a firm opposition to Israel. Gallardo is the only one of the four critics who has not signed the manifesto for the extraordinary congress – despite wishing them luck – and his positions are more extremist than those defended by Vox.

Against the power core

The internal clash erupts at the most opportune demographic moment for the formation, although the crisis has been brewing for a long time. This is demonstrated by the avalanche of private conversations from 2024 published in media outlets like The Objective: "They have them all recorded," claim Vox sources consulted by ARA. Especially in Murcia. Several voices within the party see a "clear coordination" among the critics, while the leadership has created a team to review allegedly defamatory statements and news to file lawsuits. They believe that behind the war and the critics is the PP to weaken Vox in a context of a parade to the courts due to the Kitchen case.

Within Vox, there is a power core headed by Abascal as president, Ignacio Garriga as general secretary and vice-president, and Montserrat Lluis as deputy general secretary. Also among trusted individuals are communication advisors Kiko Méndez-Monasterio and Gabriel Ariza – son of the communication totem who leads El Toro TV, Julio Ariza – who own the company Tizona; in addition to the director of communication, Álvaro Zancajo. Without them, nothing moves in the party. The war, claim Vox sources, stems from "who is closest to the leader and who is not." The rift has even led to suspicions that "they are forming a new party under the guise of an extraordinary congress." Gallardo advocated for creating one in an interview with El Mundo "if Vox ceases to be useful." However, it is not clear if Espinosa will take the step due to the division it would cause.

Chain of goodbyes

The crisis is visible now, but it has been coming for a long time. Ortega Smith distanced himself from the leadership in 2022, when he did not understand the change in the general secretariat in favor of Garriga. But it was in 2023 that private communications between him and prominent members of the leadership ceased, as confirmed by ARA. It is the same year in which Ortega Smith criticized those who had made Vox their "modus vivendi". In 2024, he ceased to be vice-president to become a rank-and-file member, at the end of 2025 he was expelled from the leadership and this year from the party. July 2022 was also another critical moment for the party: when parliamentary spokesperson Macarena Olona resigned. She ended up clashing with the leadership, also with Ortega, but after trying a new party, she did not participate in the critical movement.

In Espinosa's case, he resigned a month after the general elections. "He is not a minister and we are not governing with the PP and he does not want to do grunt work in a context where he cannot influence the president as much," conclude knowledgeable sources. The example was the electoral lists, in which "he proposed many names that the president did not accept". Espinosa's case is the most delicate because it focuses on the battle of ideas. He has an open file for expulsion that an affiliate requested, but there are members of the leadership who do not see it clearly in terms of impact. In any case, who until a week ago was vice-president of the guarantees committee, José Francisco Garre, denounced to El País"pressures" from the leadership to "expel" Espinosa. Garre was sacked because he made a deal with the PP behind Abascal's back in the Murcian town of Torre Pacheco, where he is a councilor.

What are the most critical points in the territory? The two major conflicts in the provinces of Madrid and Murcia, in addition to the chaos in the Balearic Islands, have so far been the party's hot potatoes for "changing leaderships" for more than three years, amidst internal clashes. Rocío Monasterio from Madrid, Espinosa's wife, resigned in October 2024, lamenting the provincial dismissal – but accepting it. In Murcia, after Antelo's rebellion, several voices describe the situation as "a minefield" in which "everyone is out to kill". In Castilla y León, the war broke out suddenly when Gallardo did not comply with Garriga's order to dismiss two deputies who had asked to leave Viktor Orbán's European group and return to Meloni's.

Besides the four fantastic, there are other former deputies who have resigned and want an extraordinary congress, such as Juan Luis Steegmann –who resigned due to the "neo-Phalangist" drift he attributes to ideologue Jorge Buxadé–, Víctor Sánchez del Real or Rubén Manso. The current crisis of Vox is not new, but rather the party had already experienced one at the beginning: after the failure of the 2014 European elections, the one who presented himself as the head of the list, Aleix Vidal-Quadras, resigned. At that time, the person who obtained funding from the Iranian opposition lamented a national-populist drift that Espinosa now denounces, who criticizes "statism" with an "illiberal" touch and a lack of internal democracy.