Vox's strategy to derive profit from the victims of tragedies

BarcelonaThe Urda train accident this Wednesday, the January disaster in Adamuz, the Ceuta crisis, the DANA in the Valencian Community, the COVID-19 pandemic, or even the summer wildfires. Hundreds of accumulated deaths that Vox has not hesitated to use as a political weapon against the Spanish government. In fact, the far-right formation led by Santiago Abascal depicts an apocalyptic Spain presided over by Pedro Sánchez, who "provokes" or "exacerbates" major crises, among other things because he is, in their view, a "psychopath," "traitor," "madman," and "bastard." A "son of a bitch," as is heard at every Vox rally, even though Abascal prefers not to use that insult.

The far-right's recipe is a no-holds-barred battle against the state government, regardless of the tragedy at hand. In the case of Toledo, where there have been at least 69 deaths, the far-right party's offensive began less than an hour after the fateful train accident, when in an interview on Antena 3 the leader of the formation, Santiago Abascal, was already laying out the foundations of a strategy that has been in crescendo. "Maintenance money is being spent on escorts, [...] it is being used for trash. I will continue my trip through Spain because we are working to denounce the degradation of our country's infrastructure," he said, warning that they would not make him "shut up" and that he would continue "working." Vox is the only party that has maintained its pre-campaign events, when the rest have joined the three days of official mourning.

Vox's attitude is even criticized by its main partner. "It surprises me that there are those who want to use all this politically because all of us who are dedicated to public service do not have the stomach to be in a pre-campaign," stated the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, also on Antena 3.

The accident has become an electoral weapon, incorporating the ingredients that Vox has already used in previous offensives over disaster management: the judicial path against the political officials –in this case, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente– and street agitation against Sánchez's management, which in this case has a clear derivative in the 29-N.

It is not a coincidence that the day after the accident Vox has already filed a lawsuit against the Minister of Transport for reckless homicide. In the case of the Adamuz accident –where there were 46 deaths–, the lawsuit was filed four days later, directed against the former president and the current top executive of Adif, Isabel Pardo de Vera and Luis Pedro Marco de la Peña. Back then they did not point at Puente, even though they dubbed him with the nickname of "butcher of Adamuz": Vox always uses the verb to kill to describe what the Moncloa has done. "I do not intend to rest until this government, which is a criminal organization, sits in the dock to answer for its crimes," asserted Abascal the same Wednesday, saying that he wanted to lead the public "denunciation" of the Spanish government, not fall into the trap of becoming a "crybaby".

The tone, raised

"The only human error has been to place the pimp Ábalos and the criminal from Adamuz and Urda at the head of the Ministry of Transport". This is the conclusion of Abascal's party. During the minute of silence on the same day of the tragedy, they displayed signs with the inscription "Corruption kills" and the addendum "Pedro Sánchez, guilty" in Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles. On the street, those leading the way are the far-right union Solidaridad and its leader, Jordi de la Fuente, who is Vox's head of the list in Tarragona for 29-N —and who is linked to a party of neo-Nazi inspiration like the Movimiento Social Republicano—. Common in protests against immigration, this same Wednesday evening Solidaridad demonstrated alongside Falange in Madrid in front of the Ministry of Transport headquarters.

But this path is not new and it was already seen during the DANA in the Valencian Community. Back then, Abascal and his followers remarked that Sánchez was "the primary person responsible" and, in fact, they filed a lawsuit against him a week after the cold drop on October 29, 2024. With the COVID-19 pandemic, in which there were more than 100,000 deaths, Vox also blamed Sánchez for the management and filed a lawsuit against him for "gross negligence" and "omission of security measures." The same as with the fires of last summer, when they presented another lawsuit against the Spanish president. With the Ceuta crisis, with more than 140 deaths, they also filed a lawsuit and accused the Spanish government of "collaborating with terrorism" and committing reckless homicide. They also blamed Moncloa for the power outage, but the lawsuit was filed against the president of Red Eléctrica.