The remaining time of the current legislature in the State is one of the great unknowns in Spanish politics at the moment. While Pedro Sánchez proclaims his will to resist as long as possible and the PP relies on the wear and tear that the Spanish president may suffer from the succession of scandals, from Vox the strategy is to proclaim the "danger" that the coming months could pose if the socialist leader remains in power. The reaction of Santiago Abascal's party to the Supreme Court ruling against José Luis Ábalos has been to warn that what they call the socialist "criminal mafia" is willing to do "anything" to stay in Moncloa until 2027. And even beyond that electoral date. "The worst is yet to come," they predict. The almost apocalyptic scenario presented by the far-right includes the hypothesis that Sánchez could "steal" the next Spanish elections.

Beyond the PSOE and the PSC, the left-wing parties paint a plural mosaic in the Spanish state. This complex configuration expresses two facts. The plurinational character of the State, with differentiated societies that generate their own party systems, and the tendency towards ideologically delimited spaces: a culture of political affiliation that makes it difficult to articulate broad fronts. Broadly speaking, in ten of the seventeen autonomous communities, proximity left-wing parties operate with an institutional presence. In all cases, it is a single entity that brings together progressive sovereigntism: Endavant Andalusia, the BNG, the CHA, Compromís, Bildu, Més Madrid, Més and Nova Canàries. Catalonia is the exception: here ERC, Comuns and CUP inhabit (and dispute) the space. On the other hand, there are three forces with the will to operate throughout the State: IU, Podem and Moviment Sumar.Throughout the years 2023 to 2026, the sovereignist lefts complete a cycle with relevant results: above 30% in Euskadi and Galicia; between 15% and 25% in Catalonia, Madrid, Navarra, and the Valencian Country; around 10% in Andalusia, Aragon, the Canary Islands, and the Balearic Islands. The federal lefts, in the same cycle, are situated at modest levels: between 2% and 5%. In three communities, however, these forces articulate candidacies based on trajectories that go beyond a specific coalition: Per Andalusia, Unides per Extremadura, and Contigo-Zurekin (Navarra); in all cases, the results improve and are situated between 6% and 10%. The set of these dynamics offers some keys for navigating paths of strengthening. It is also about factors connected to underlying trends.Territorial rootedness. In a global context of uncertainties, individualization, and acceleration of rhythms, community anchorages are absolutely necessary. But they must be rebuilt on new foundations. The explosion of diversity requires daily environments where bonds are possible. It is about equipping life paths with elements of relational security: frameworks where support and collective action capacities are articulated. In political terms, these solidarity grammars translate into actors oriented towards working with logics of territorial rootedness and municipalist projects. Political forces similar to the people, where belonging is built in terms of practices and values, rather than ideological narratives; where identity is oriented towards forging popular power and local sovereignties, rather than national abstractions.The will to articulate majorities. Throughout the last century, the political expression of social conflict consolidated the classic left/right axis. In that context, social democracy managed to gain centrality in the progressive sphere. And even more relevant: it built a framework of reference, which placed the rest of the actors, for example, to the left of the socialists. This framework still underpins – often inertially – many perceptions. But it has begun to overflow. Spaces of the left are now being articulated that move from the corner of the board towards broader proposals. Political forces that connect with new common senses, more transformative and more transversal at the same time.The activation of hope and joy. “To be radical is to make hope possible, not to convince despair”. With these words, the Welsh sociologist Raymond Williams wanted to establish a clear counterpoint to an emotional state deeply embedded in the left. What Deleuze called the sad passions: a political logic given to discouragement, or, in the best of cases, to digging trenches of resistance. But here too things have begun to change: the left of hope is emerging. Actors who link transformative ambition to joyful passions. Political spaces that are working on a new emotional framework that generates horizons of meaning, and also fraternal paths to move forward. A rebellious grammar – without resentment or nostalgia – woven by trust and empathy.The good recent results of the sovereignist left, and also of the federal ones when they work from proximity, offer solid foundations. The challenge now is to translate this baggage into formulas for cooperation with tactical intelligence (given an electoral system in which proportionality largely disappears in much of the territory). A good result for the left in the general elections will be key to defeating PP and Vox. Two open proposals for confluence have been put forward: the call by Gabriel Rufián and that of the Sumar parties in government. They should be worked on, cross-recognitions built, and progress made towards inclusive fronts: pivoting on plurinationality, with the capacity to articulate majorities and broaden hope. Perhaps it is not easy, but it would be difficult to explain not trying.

The day after the respective parliamentary groups applauded with Christian fervor (of false saints, of whitewashed tombs) in Congress the words of Leo XIV against xenophobia and national priority, the PP and Vox invested the new president of Castilla y León with a government agreement based mainly on this concept. It is hypocritical and contrary to the spirit and letter of everything they claim to defend, from the Constitution to the Charter of Human Rights, but it was completely predictable that it would be so. Castilla y León would not be an exception to what has already happened in Extremadura and Aragon, nor to what will most likely also happen in Andalusia. In fact, in the communities that have not had elections this past winter but are also governed by agreements or pacts between the PP and Vox, national priority has also been incorporated into the roadmap as an indispensable condition for maintaining governments. The scheme is always the same: Vox imposes a blockade on the PP and does not lift it until the PP signs a long document in which it commits to applying Vox's demands in its government action. Since Vox is a completely vertical and hierarchical party, it always does things the same way everywhere, so it is absolutely predictable.The first of these demands is the famous national priority, which conceptually implies the institutionalization of racism and xenophobia, and in practice means a severe cutback in immigrants' access to public services. It is, incidentally, exactly the same recipe proposed by Aliança Catalana in Catalonia, and it is also the characteristic “Theirs first” of fascist populism. It rhymes well with the European Union's migratory policy, which, as the Advocate General of the ECJ has just certified, exports immigrants to prisons in non-EU countries without any guarantees regarding their fundamental rights. Without euphemisms: so that they can be tortured and killed in these other countries, in exchange for receiving the corresponding stipend.Returning to the national priority of Vox and the PP, what many of their supporters do not know is that the cuts in public services and rights that they applaud being applied to immigrants will tomorrow also be applied against them. Hearing Mañueco (the president of Castilla y León is called this, and he repeats in office) stammer vague excuses to downplay the agreement is a sad warning of the justifications that his voters will have to seek when they realize – if they realize – that at the bottom of it all is the dismantling of the welfare state, first, and of democracy itself later, or simultaneously. All this, seasoned with defiant bad-taste fireworks: the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, who a couple of years ago stated that governing with Vox was her red line, now puts the resources and strength to create a piece of garbage called Extremestiza, to exalt with public money the figures of the Extremaduran plunderers of Latin America, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. And what is worse, with Nacho Cano as musical advisor.

After decades of what was known as "Iberian exceptionalism" – the absence of radical right-wing formations in the peninsula's parliaments – this political spectrum has not only burst into the Parliament of Catalonia, but has done so twice over. A study by the Institute of Political and Social Sciences (ICPS), published this Wednesday, thoroughly analyzes the rise of Vox and Aliança Catalana (AC), two parties that, despite defending diametrically opposed national projects, are primarily fueled by the same electoral driver: rejection of immigration.The ICPS study challenges the idea that the growth of these parties is solely due to polarization and the management of the independence process. While the territorial conflict created the right climate for Vox, led by Ignasi Garriga, to enter Parliament in 2021 and Catalan Alliance, led by Sílvia Orriols, to do so in 2024, the real driving force behind both electorates is structural. Both parties fully exploit "welfare chauvinism," a strategy that advocates for public services to be reserved exclusively for "nationals." Both the party led by Santiago Abascal and Sílvia Orriols' party agree in their platforms to associate immigration and crime, demand the deportation of irregular immigrants and the expulsion of unaccompanied foreign minors (MENA), and call for drastic measures to expedite the eviction of squatters. Economically, they also go hand in hand: they propose fiscal cuts, the abolition of taxes such as inheritance and gift tax and wealth tax, criticize excessive public spending, and generally call for a strong boost to free market policies.

The PP and Vox have already closed a government pact in Castilla y León. After the agreements in Aragon and Extremadura, the right and far-right have sealed a new understanding for Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who had already governed with the far-right, to repeat as president. There have been no surprises regarding the content of the pact, which replicates the spirit of those signed in the two previous autonomies with the PP's adoption of the principle of "national priority." Mañueco stressed, in a press conference this Wednesday, that it is "the same text as in Extremadura and Aragon," which sets a "priority allocation according to real, verifiable, and effective residency" in the territory, and defended that it falls within "the legal framework."

The Supreme Court has put a stop to the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Vox, and has rejected temporarily paralyzing the extraordinary regularization of immigrantswhich began a month and a half ago. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber decided this after five hearings held this morning, which served for the Madrid executive, the far-right party, and three ultra associations to launch attacks against the regularization process promoted by the Spanish government after an agreement with Podemos. In one of them, the State Attorney announced that as of May 21st, 549,596 applications had been submitted and 91,905 had begun to be processed. Those who passed the first filter received a provisional authorization to work. In many cases, these were people who had jobs: they were working illegally and now do so legally, or they have found work elsewhere. "We are not talking about entry, but about a radically different issue. We are talking about a group of people who were in Spain, who can prove five months of residence, and who had deficits in accessing rights," argued the State Attorney. He also highlighted that the regularization serves to "respond to labor market challenges" and seeks to offer "effective and rapid integration" to people who have "roots" and an "inseparable bond of coexistence" in Spain.

The Parliament has stopped experiencing the tense episodes of the Procés era, but the arrival of the far-right, with the emergence of Vox and then Aliança Catalana, also causes moments of unease in the Catalan chamber. This Thursday, one such incident occurred that, far from being an anecdote, has generated accusations and calls for resignation.

The PSOE's defeat in Andalusia is profound. One only needs to look at the evolution of the electoral results from the 1982 regional elections to the present day to realize the magnitude of the disaster. Because it's not just a loss of votes for the party, but there is a clear rightward shift in this community. An underlying current that has been gaining traction since 2018, the first year since the restoration of democracy that the PP came to power hand in hand with Vox and Ciudadanos. The candidate herself, María Jesús Montero, has been self-critical —honesty is always welcome—, as she is aware that she has fallen far short of her objective and that if the left-wing bloc has revived minimally, it has been due to the result of the sovereignist left of Endavant Andalusia.

The Andalusian elections confirm that the Spanish right is heading towards living within what Moreno Bonilla and Feijóo had insisted throughout the campaign they wanted to avoid: the mess (in the original version, el lío, a terminology inherited from Rajoy). The mess is having to govern with Vox, and that is exactly what the Andalusian PP will have to do in this new legislature, now that they have lost their absolute majority. In regional negotiations with the People's Party, Vox acts as a party that does not know the meaning of expressions like institutional loyalty or proportionality . Apparently, they don't even understand what negotiating exactly means: for Vox, there is only the possibility of imposing their slogans and ideological obsessions, or breaking the game. They are not government partners: they tutelage governments. Lately, Vox's slogan is called national priority, which means institutionalizing racism, supremacism, and xenophobia, and making them transversal elements in government action. After that, there follows a list of hatreds (feminism, environmentalism, etc.) at the top of which is the Catalan language and anything that Spanish far-right nationalism identifies as "catalan". This is "the mess" that Moreno Bonilla will have to face, who does not emerge exactly unscathed (5 fewer seats and loss of the absolute majority) from the scandal of breast cancer screenings, despite the fact that there were more than enough reasons for the wear and tear to be more pronounced.For its part, the question that the Andalusian PSOE can ask itself is whether it has already hit rock bottom and if it still has sheets to lose in future electoral washes. In hindsight, it is easy to say, but the truth is that the socialists could hardly have chosen a worse candidate than María Jesús Montero, a woman who is Andalusian by birth but who is little or nothing so in practice, much more linked to Madrid, to Pedro Sánchez and to the party apparatus than to Andalusian political discussion, which is intense, dense, and vibrant. The old tactic of sending politicians who have "succeeded" in Madrid as ministers to the "provinces" (Pilar Alegría to Aragon, María Jesús Montero to Andalusia), which has been used so many times by both the PP and the PSOE, interchangeably, is not yielding results for Pedro Sánchez.The significant rise of the sovereignist left Endavant Andalusia, led by José Ignacio García, compared to the blockage suffered by the Sumar, Podem, and Esquerra Unida coalition, Per Andalusia, with Antonio Maíllo as candidate, confirms that "what matters to people" is also ideological, and that sovereignism makes sense (and has voters) when it is presented as a form of democratic improvement, linked to the demands for the rights and freedoms of individuals, both individually and collectively. The fact that Endavant Andalusia has received more votes than Vox in constituencies like Cádiz or Seville is also relevant. By blocs, the right-wing parties total 68 seats, compared to 41 for the left-wing parties. The mess that we already know in the Balearic Islands or in the Valencian Country is beginning in Andalusia.

Juanma Moreno Bonilla entered to applause at the PP's state headquarters the day after the Andalusian elections. Despite the bittersweet taste of his victory, this Monday among the popular ranks the "spectacular" result obtained by the popular candidate is claimed. In statements to the media at the entrance of the party's state board of directors, Moreno Bonilla has argued that, no matter how much he has fallen two deputies short of an absolute majority, the 53 seats are a "sufficiently forceful" result to leave Vox out of his future regional executive. "It is a very good result that gives us room to maneuver to govern alone," he stated. For now, Vox has not set this price, as it did in Extremadura and Aragon, awaiting the start of negotiations. Moreno explained that he has not yet had contact with Santiago Abascal's party.

Catalonia concentrates such a diversity and complexity that it is a kind of Port Aventura of politics, where you have everything multiplied by two and sometimes apparently contradictory processes intertwine.

The president of the Canary Islands government, Fernando Clavijo, of Coalición Canaria, complains that the Minister of Health, Mónica García, has "ridiculed" him and "taken him to the meme" for his theory about swimming rats that could escape from the ship MV Hondius and spread throughout the Canary Islands, biting the suffering citizens at will, an idea he maintained in a screenshot taken from an AI. Perhaps Clavijo doesn't realize it, but he himself has made a fool of himself and offered himself as the protagonist of memes, by providing the synopsis of a B-movie to an extremely delicate health operation with a strong international impact. Clavijo's laughable —but not funny— overacting could not prevent Pedro Sánchez from once again receiving applause from the international community: the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen; the UN's António Guterres, and also the President of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, have praised the management of the situation by the Spanish executive. The national spokesperson for Vox, José Antonio Fúster, commented: “How scary, when the WHO praises you, it must be a bad thing.” Because, as we know, the WHO is one of the favorite targets of the lies and conspiracy theories of the global far-right. Perhaps for all these reasons, Clavijo has announced the possibility of taking the Spanish government to court for its handling of the hantavirus (in fact, the arrival of the ship has already been the subject of judicial rulings: on Friday, the National Court rejected an urgent request to halt the disembarkation, and the next day, the Court of First Instance of Madrid confirmed the imposition of a quarantine on the cruise passengers). When the fear mechanism fails them (the theory of the invasion of amphibious rats, however much fun it may have generated, was nothing more than an attempt to sow fear among the population), they always have the option of taking matters, whatever they may be, to court. They don't always win (often they do), but at least they have managed to bog down the discussion.Experts at spreading falsehoods and judicializing, the ultra entity Abogados Cristianos has raised a outcry because they want to prevent Pope Leo XIV, during his visit to Barcelona in a month, from visiting the Lluís Companys stadium because, they allege, under Companys' mandate "more than eight thousand people were murdered". They refer to the persecutions of religious by the FAI during the Civil War, but they omit precisely this: that there was a Civil War caused by a military and fascist uprising, which had the support of the Church. They propose that, instead of the Lluís Companys stadium, the pontiff go to the Valley of the Fallen, as they still call it. It seems that under Franco's mandate no one died, starting with the 33,833 people (12,000 of whom were unidentified) that the dictator had buried in his tomb in Cuelgamuros: the largest mass grave in a fascist Spain to which some want to return at all costs.

Since its emergence as a leading player, many political parties have tried to find a way to react to the far-right. The radical populist right's ability to win over diverse voters, as well as to mobilize non-voters and profiles disconnected from politics, disconcerts many formations accustomed to playing on a different playing field. The far-right's rhetoric and the issues it raises, especially immigration, have fueled the desire to build a strategy to confront it. Whether out of conviction or electoralism, how to react to the far-right is a matter of concern and occupies minds.

The first rule of authoritarian leaders is to delegitimize institutions and never recognize an electoral defeat. We are seeing this in the United States with Donald Trump, who six years later still has not recognized Joe Biden's victory in 2020. In Spain, it is Vox who applies the trumpism instruction manual to the letter, and it has been weeks since Santiago Abascal and his followers have been propagating on social media and through every means possible the idea that Pedro Sánchez's government is preparing a rigged election for the elections scheduled for next year. This breeding ground is fueled by fake news about Indra's power, about the manipulation of mail-in voting, or about the effects that the regularization of immigrants will have on the census, which is nil. The objective, however, is to create an unbreathable climate, close to insurrection, and to prepare the ground to challenge the results if they do not match their expectations. The risk, however, of provoking a social explosion with violence is very high, as already happened on January 6, 2021, in the Capitol or also in Brasília on January 8, 2023.

The joke of the moment: President Díaz Ayuso declares Madrid a “free territory of nationalisms and identity ideologies”, “the most heterogeneous region that exists because it is made up of all forms of being Spanish”. It sounded like a reverberation of one of Francoism's slogans: “España, una, grande y libre”, now concentrated in the capital.

Joint front of entities, unions and parties in Girona against the manager of the Instagram account Girona Perduda, which with more than 30,000 followers has become since the start of the school year a channel for citizen discontent, on aspects such as cleanliness and safety in the streets, linking immigration and crime with a mixture of photos, videos and true data, others exaggerated, disinformation and fake news. Another example of allegedly non-partisan accounts that serve the far-right to polarize public opinion, according to the assessment of experts consulted by ARA, which in December uncovered the links between the administrator of Girona Perduda and Vox.

It was Saturday at eleven in the morning when a man repeatedly stabbed a woman in the back. Then he cut her throat. The Mossos investigation has not been able to determine that they knew each other: everything indicates that she was a victim chosen at random who had the worst of luck.

The conservative tsunami that seemed to point to the result of the 28-M elections in Spain –with the vast majority of autonomous communities and large cities dyed the blue of the PP and the green of Vox– could end up becoming a wave that dies on the coast this July 23rd. The push of the populars, who dream of surpassing 160 deputies, seems to have been diluted in recent weeks, and, according to the survey that the Opinòmetre Institute has done for ARA, despite winning the elections with between 125 and 140 deputies, Alberto Núñez Feijóo would have it very difficult to access Moncloa. Not even the sum with Vox (between 22 and 30 deputies) would be enough to surpass the 176 seats that mark the absolute majority in Congress. Even at the high end of the range, the two parties only add up to 170 parliamentarians.

It's not new, but it does intensify every day. The PP of Madrid and the far-right Vox are shamelessly spreading the theory of electoral fraud. In the same vein as Donald Trump in the United States after his 2020 defeat – which ended in a failed coup insurrection – and as the Spanish right had already hinted with attacks on mail-in voting in both the last general elections and the Extremaduran contests, the flag of electoral fraud, which points to Pedro Sánchez as guilty, is once again flying.

The Vox deputy for Girona, Alberto Tarradas, gave a tasteless speech playing on the threat of deportation of ERC deputy Najat Driouech, which is not only not a joke, but contains all the elements of fascist hate speech. Pronounced from the lectern of Parliament, it makes one's stomach turn and we are eagerly awaiting the chamber's punishment.