Vox announced on Wednesday the names heading their lists for the Spanish elections on November 29. Most of the current members of Congress are in the top spots, but there are also nearly twenty new faces. And among them stands out the head of the list for Tarragona, where the far-right has decided to place a candidate with a neo-Nazi past. This is Jordi de la Fuente, a councilor in Sant Adrià de Besòs and current leader of Solidaridad, the Vox union.

The PP and Vox have designed a campaign whose main objective is to prevent the left from mobilizing. It is for this reason that their candidates, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP) and Santiago Abascal (Vox), avoided an uncomfortable photograph this Wednesday with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, a character known for his buffoonery and insults towards what he calls leftists (zurdos, in Spanish). The strategy, however, did not work out very well for them. First, because the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, skipped the veto and did indeed meet with Milei and took a photo with him. And second, because a kind of Streisand effect also occurred, that is to say, there was more talk about their interest in not coinciding with him than about the visit itself.

Javier Milei has returned to Spain, specifically to Madrid. He has done so on a lightning visit and an open bar that coincides with the November 29th electoral pre-campaign. The Argentine president landed on Tuesday evening and only had an agenda this Wednesday. This Thursday first thing in the morning he is leaving again. In any case, he only needed a 24-hour day to do what he always does when he visits the Spanish capital: throw poisoned darts at Pedro Sánchez. "Unpresentable dictator", "thief" and "delinquent", Milei threw at him. Some "insults and slanders" that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has "energetically" condemned. Milei also took the opportunity to attack socialist governments around the world: "They must be kicked out", he said. And he made an ode to the wildest capitalism and ultraliberal policies: "Chainsaw to public spending". And to finish, he took a photo with his "friend", the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP).

Business-oriented move by Vox. In the lists for the Congress of Deputies for the constituency of Barcelona, to which ARA has had access, the economic guru of the radical right-wing party, Ignacio Fontcuberta, is incorporated as number 3. Santiago Abascal has decided to place his finance man to build a bridge "with the business fabric" in Catalonia, according to sources familiar with the operation. Even more so considering his background as an executive, which has allowed him to hold a prominent position in the party.

The other day Feijóo announced that he would build a million apartments thanks to the fact that, with a government of his, there would be “less bureaucracy”, but instead of less bureaucracy, he said “less democracy”. He often does not know how to interpret what he is reading. The other day he said that he would only address the hardworking people and not the freeloaders, and when saying “freeloaders” (“scammers”) he did this. These slips make him meme fodder, and deepen the evidence that the personality of the favorite candidate in the polls to preside over Spain does not measure up, but not because he is often wrong, but because he is a politician from a past era.

At the gates of the elections, the ERC candidate, Gabriel Rufián, publishes How to beat the fascists (Ara Llibres), in which he breaks down the keys to combat the far right and, in this way, avoid a victory for the PP with the support of Vox on 29-N. Below, we offer you a decalogue with the most important ideas of this work that distills the sharp style of the republican leader:

In an interview with El Periódico and published this Sunday, the PP candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said that “government with Vox can work, it already does so in four autonomous communities”. It was not so long ago that PP leaders, and especially Feijóo, avoided being photographed with those from Vox at demonstrations, so as not to be associated with the far right. Those were the times when Vox called the PP “derechita cobarde”, while they were eating into their ground and electorate.

There are wise decisions made at suspicious moments. The increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) is a good example of this. The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has asked the committee of experts to propose the increase for 2027, by early November at the latest, so that it can be approved before the November 29 elections, when it is normally approved in February. Coincidence? Not at all. The employers' association has rushed to denounce it as electoralism, and with good reason: the SMI affects some 2.5 million people, many of whom have the right to vote.

1. There are no nuances left now. One after another, the European right-wing parties are capitulating, surrendering themselves to the far-right. In Italy, the latest whim of President Giorgia Meloni, who has already been in power for four years, has been an electoral law that gifts seventy seats to whoever obtains 42% of the votes, that is to say, a bonus that minimizes pluralism. And everyone has taken it in their stride. We are in the dynamic of "anything goes".

It has become a routine operation for civic entities—or directly parties—of the far-right or Spanish ultra-nationalists to take their political demands to the highest judicial instances, and for judges and prosecutors to take on the task of turning them into sentences or resolutions of mandatory compliance for citizens or institutions. This is what is known as the judicialization of politics, a mechanism that was greased and fine-tuned (“fine-tuned” was a key word) during the years of persecution and criminalization of the Catalan independence movement, and which has now reached cruising speed against all enemies of Spain that stand in its way, starting if necessary—as we have also been seeing for some years now—with the government of Spain itself.

The Hispanic Day in Barcelona has shown that the PP and Vox have antagonistic strategies in Catalonia. The traditional demonstration of civil Spanish nationalism on Passeig de Gràcia, which gathered 1,700 people according to the Urban Guard, was marked by the electoral climate. Although the march's slogan was "Catalonia with Ceuta" and it was full of flags of the autonomous city, the calling of Spanish elections was the true protagonist. Santiago Abascal's party is aware that they are strong in the Principality, currently more so than the PP in the polls, but the Popular Party is weathering the storm of the sorpasso predicting the triumph that they take for granted in the State. The notable flight of voters or supporters of Aliança towards Vox in the Spanish elections –at least around 22%, according to the CEO– allows us to understand the multiplication of messages to seduce Sílvia Orriols' voters in the middle of October 12th. It should be noted that Aliança is not running in these elections.

Shortly after the announcement of the election call, the PP's social media accounts circulated a video showing Minister Óscar Puente writhing in pain after breaking his leg. And the New Generations, one showing immigrants in Ceuta with the slogan: "Either them or us." These were two samples of where the party aspiring to govern Spain intends to take the campaign. Also on the same day, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Vox asked their voters not to even think about voting by mail, thus sowing doubt about whether the current government is preparing a rigging. This is a scarecrow that the right has been waving for some time, with the idea of portraying Pedro Sánchez as an aspiring dictator.

Once again we have to agree with José María Aznar, analyst: the general elections of November 29 are not just any elections. According to Aznar they are "the most important in the last fifty years": more "important", we must understand, therefore, than the constituent general elections of June 1977, where the Cortes that drafted and approved the 1978 Constitution were chosen, the same one against which Aznar wrote some deeply furious and "liberal" articles in the newspaper La Nueva Rioja. Now, having long since become a Visigothic Pelagius of the self-styled constitutionalism, the former president of the Iraq war and the "España va bien" warns us of the hecatomb: "If the current government majority continues in power, the constitutional system and the parliamentary monarchy will end", he has warned. It must be recognized that, depending on how you look at it, it is a tempting scenario.

1. The Maricarmen case has triggered the emergence of the housing issue on the scene, and has generated an impact on public opinion that has highlighted the abuses and limitations of the market. And now the paradoxical situation could arise where it is the right—an active collaborator of those who speculate with this fundamental right—that capitalizes on it. Sánchez has found himself with his back to the wall precisely when a topic breaks out to which the left should be more sensitive than the right, and the government has not been attentive enough to what should have been a priority of its mandate.

The publication of the calling of early elections to the Official State Gazette (BOE) kicked off the pre-campaign this Tuesday. Pedro Sánchez seeks to drag the progressive vote mobilized by the housing crisis and turn around the result predicted by the polls, which give a majority to the right and the far right. Everything will depend, however, on the correlation of forces resulting from the polls on November 29, and much of the attention in the campaign will be on Junts, which already tipped the balance in this last Spanish legislature. A position of calculated balance and equidistance is expected from the Junts members in the campaign, but the spokesperson in Madrid, Miriam Nogueras, has already assured that they will not facilitate a PP and Vox government.

Joy on the right over Pedro Sánchez's decision to call early elections. Both the PP and Vox have applauded the announcement for November 29, which they see as the definitive opportunity to end the Sanchista era. "Finally, we can close this chapter," celebrated Alberto Núñez Feijóo in an institutional statement at the Popular Party headquarters shortly after the Spanish Prime Minister's announcement. The PP leader has been waiting for years for a second chance to reach La Moncloa after his failed attempt in 2023, and has positioned these new polls as a transcendental occasion in which much more will be done "than choosing between two parties." "This is about making Spain defeat Sánchez and what he represents," proclaimed Feijóo, who urged citizens to decide "if they want four more years of what we are living through or if they want to give change a chance." However, the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has gone a step further and has once again fueled the ghost of electoral fraud.

The Comuns want to report the Vox councilor in Sabadell, César Gil, "for having made the gesture of a shot to the back of the neck at an advisor of the purple party during the municipal plenary session." Deputy Joan Mena explained on X that he made the gesture (with the index and ring finger together, the thumb straight, and the other two hidden) "when an advisor from Comuns and another from Vox were arguing about the Ceuta crisis." Vox said in a statement that the councilor "responded to the threats" of a Comuns advisor, before which the councilor "pointed to his own nape with his fingers" to ask himself if they would opt to "shoot in the nape like the ETA members."

A judge in Santa Coloma de Gramenet has opened an investigation following a complaint from social entities in the city against Vox councilman Aitor Navarro for his racist messages on social media and for having disclosed the names of people receiving municipal social aid or subsidies. The judge has summoned Navarro to testify on November 17 and will also take statements from several witnesses a week later, according to a court order reported by Eldiario.es and consulted by ARA.

The Barcelona City Council demanded this Friday that the manager of the Horta Velodrome prevent the participation in one of the 7-a-side football leagues held there of a team that promotes Francoism. The city's Sports Councilor, David Escudé, has sent a letter requesting the expulsion of the team Mingorrubio Balompié —alluding to the cemetery where the dictator is buried—, which, as reported by SER, has among its members two Vox officials in Barcelona and displayed Francoist symbology on its crest.

Surprise at the Parliament's Board of Spokespersons. Aliança Catalana supported Vox this Tuesday in an attempt to prevent the spokesperson for the Spanish nationalist party, Joan Garriga, from being admonished for his insults against Lluís Companys, calling him a murderer. Despite the combined votes of these two parties and the PP, the proposal from Garriga's party did not go through and the sanction remains. Nevertheless, during the press conference before the media, Garriga thanked these two parties for their support for his request that the Bureau reconsider the sanction for violating the code of conduct.