Vox fishes among the anti-Catalan movement of the Catalan Countries

BarcelonaThe Aragonese elections have revealed a rapprochement between the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and at least one mayor from the Aragonese Party (PAR), Horacio Palacio, the mayor of Fanlo. This rapprochement resulted in a promotional video In the midst of the election campaign and the victory of the far right in the municipality (nineteen votes and 36.5% of the vote, compared to just two in 2023, more than the regionalists obtained this time, who maintained one of the twenty votes they received three years ago). Although Vox's theoretical objective is to abolish the autonomous communities, it is not unusual for them to seek alliances with supposedly regionalist movements, including in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands. In all three territories, the common denominators are ideology and rabid anti-Catalanism, with rejection of the Catalan Countries and the Catalan language.

And indeed, the PAR, now absent from the Aragonese Parliament after more than four decades of influencing governments and even presiding over them, already made its presence felt in the 2019 march alongside the PP, Ciudadanos, and Vox, next to the photo trifachito which Pedro Sánchez used to win the elections. The party, which suffered legal entanglements and clashed with Vox, especially over its rejection of the Ebro water transfer, ended up coinciding with the far right in its anti-Catalan sentiment and its desire to eliminate Catalan from any official recognition in Aragon, opting instead for invented languages ​​such as the chapurriau to attack linguistic unity. The PAR he told the ARA that Catalonia "is not a nationality" nor can it have an economic agreement, unlike what they defend for Aragon.

In the Valencian Country, prominent members of the Valencian Action Group (GAV) have even joined Vox, which also has close ties with the pro-Valencian Federation of Cultural Entities of the Kingdom of Valencia [sic], and have forged a bond with the linguistic secessionist Real Aca, with whom Abascal himself has met. The former leader of the GAV, of the failed Valencian Coalition party, and current president of the Federation of Entities, Juan García Sentandreu, joined Vox, where he said he found "Valencianism," because he understands the movement as synonymous with anti-Catalanism. His small circle of acolytes followed suit, and Sentandreu defended the change in forums of pro-Valencian associations like Defensem Valéncia [sic], asserting that Valencia should be a "bulwark" against Catalan nationalism and that language plays a key role—hence their desire to eliminate the Valencian Academy. However, in 2020, Sentandreu denounced "fraud" in the primaries of the party he lost in Valencia. Vox even went so far as to draft the Vilamarxant manifesto, which reflected this particular ideology. This pro-Valencian nationalism had already been strongly incorporated into the People's Party (PP), even through the absorption of a significant portion of Unió Valenciana.

And in the Balearic Islands, Vox won over the Balearic Circle, a pro-Spanish group that purports to defend Balearic dialects as distinct languages. A prominent member is Vox MP Jorge Campos, a monolingual Spanish speaker. Vox has also forged ties with secessionist groups. S'Academi de sa Llengo Baléà [sic] and His Foundation. The PP flirted, especially during the time of José Ramón Bauzá, but now has a Menorcan councilor the former leader of this entity Joan Pons.

The Aragonese case

Looking at the data, in the case of Aragon, it has been observed that part of the anti-Catalan regionalist movement has historically bolstered the PP's representation, but now it has also swelled the ranks of Vox. David Pac, professor of political sociology at the University of Zaragoza, told ARA that Vox's capture of PAR voters is not "significant" from a global perspective—the PAR obtained 8,000 votes—but that vote transfers have indeed occurred. Polls from an Aragonese newspaper such as The Herald They showed a transfer of 21% in January and 30% in December. In the case of a survey with a larger sample, such as the CIS pre-election poll, Pac recalls that with about fifty PAR respondents out of a sample of 3,313, 11% went to Vox, 38.2% to the PP, and 27.6% to Teruel Exist.

"There has always been a regionalist, conservative, center-right movement. When the PAR lost power, the PP gained it," says Pac, who points to the competition between them on the right-wing ideological axis and adds that "Aragonese nationalism wasn't substantial," but rather "very right-wing." "They are very pro-Spanish," he concludes. He also highlights that the vote going to Vox connects with "the sense of grievance felt by rural areas in relation to urban areas, and the grievance concerning climate change," and that Abascal's party "has worked within the emotional framework that resonates with the rural electorate," which predominates in the PAR, in small towns, where it holds 334 council seats. On the other hand, Valencian political scientist Francesc Miralles asserts that the PAR, "aside from anti-Catalan sentiment, which is more widespread, sees as enemies issues they haven't resolved, such as the Franja." "The Catalan issue always appears in Spanish nationalism and is the most deeply rooted sentiment on the Spanish right; it functions like anti-Semitism," he adds. In this sense, he maintains that the Balearic Islands and Valencia, in particular, are "territories where the local elite fears being replaced by a Catalan nationalist one," which leads to the rejection of Catalan nationalism. "The most important thing for PAR supporters who go to Vox is to be angry, to get angry," he concludes.