Venezuelans, Cubans or Romanians: the PP's "new Spaniards"

Madrid"Hispanics are not tourists, they are not foreigners, and they are not immigrants in Madrid because they are at home." This maxim, tirelessly repeated by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has palpable effects on the structure and membership of the Madrid branch of the People's Party (PP). At the 2022 regional congress, which made her party president, Ayuso created a secretariat called Nous Madrileños (New Madrileños) to "bring" the party closer to people of foreign origin and "promote their political participation." It is led by Gustavo Eustache, a Venezuelan who is also a member of the Madrid Assembly, and according to PP sources in the region, more than 60% of these "new Madrileños" are Latin American. "I think the PP is being smart by doing this," notes political scientist Laura Morales, who has extensively studied the voting behavior of immigrants in Spain, in a conversation with ARA.

Morales, a research professor at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), believes this strategy has had "tangible" advantages for the Madrid president. "This isn't what makes them win or lose elections," and "it's very rare for it to be decisive" in regional elections, but it can lead to "incremental improvements" in the outcome. And especially in municipal elections in smaller towns, such as Rivas-Vaciamadrid, as Morales cites as an example. The electoral roll of this Madrid town, a historical stronghold of the United Left, in the municipal and regional elections of May 28, 2023, was around 70,000 people. For the first time in the democratic era, the People's Party (PP), led by Janette Novo, of Cuban origin, won the municipal elections. Novo speaks to this newspaper at the City Hall after a day of plenary sessions as leader of the opposition. Despite the People's Party's victory, United Left and the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) combined their votes to unseat them.

In a conversation with ARA, Novo notes that there has been an increase in the foreign-born population in the municipality, but dismisses the idea that it is "significant enough" to influence the election results. The largest community, she explains, is Venezuelan, and they are the ones who most closely align with the People's Party. Why? As a Cuban herself, the PP spokesperson for Rivas-Vaciamadrid attributes this ideological affinity to the fact that both her compatriots and Venezuelans "don't flee a [left-wing] dictatorship to support the left" and "to endorse the perpetuation of a totalitarian regime in Spain as well." Furthermore, Ayuso's discourse, aimed directly at the Hispanic community, she affirms, "generates enthusiasm" because it makes them feel "welcome" and "part of a community." However, Novo denies that it's "a strategy to seek out the immigrant vote because it's growing more and more," but rather describes it as a "feeling."

Before the creation of the New Madrileños secretariat, he argues, there were already "many people of Latin American origin, or also Romanians," integrated into the party. In his specific case, he entered politics in 2011 as number four on the municipal lists, when the Madrid PP was led by Esperanza Aguirre. While it is true that this connection between the Popular Party and members of these communities has existed for years, it was at the party's national congress last July, which re-elected Alberto Núñez Feijóo, that an equivalent body to New Madrileños was created within the national structure. In this case, it was called New Spaniards and was led by Carmen Cervantes, an Ecuadorian doctor. "It works well," confirm other PP sources, who explain that the party headquarters in Madrid is urging the other regions to implement this policy of reaching out to an increasingly large group.

In Catalonia, the same sources explain, there have been groups of Latin Americans and Romanians linked to the party for years. Not all of them have the right to vote in every election—to vote in regional and general elections, they must have obtained Spanish nationality, while in municipal elections the census is expanded to include legal residents and EU citizens—but they are involved in the party's activities. Managing to gather several hundred Latin Americans at rallies, as Ayuso does, "has a very immediate communication effect," argues the CSIC researcher. "If they can collaborate, they are also welcome," says Novo, who argues that their involvement should go beyond simply fulfilling a "quota." Morales notes, however, that in the long run, these kinds of initiatives, which have also been promoted by other parties in other periods, such as ERC, eventually fizzle out, and there is an underrepresentation of people of foreign origin in institutions.

Voting by nationality

Both Morales and Santiago Pérez-Nievas, a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), explain in the ARA that one of the problems encountered when analyzing the electoral behavior of immigrants in Spain is the lack of specific data on their voting patterns. This also makes it difficult for the parties themselves to measure the electoral impact of their recruitment policies. In any case, studies conducted with this limitation indicate that this group—once they have the right to vote—has a lower participation rate and that both mobilization and political orientation depend heavily on nationality of origin. Both agree that Venezuelans—as the clearest example—Bolivians, and Romanians are the most right-leaning, although immigrants, in general, tend to vote more for the left, which "could capitalize on this more." However, "neither the PSOE nor the other progressive parties have made a visible effort to retain these voters," Morales concludes.