Last Sunday, the newspaper Última Hora published a poll on the results of the elections in the Balearic Islands, which, if nothing changes, will be held in a year's time. The prediction was that the PP and Vox will be able to renew their joint government, and that they would do so with a reinforced majority: the PP would have a significant increase, from 25 to 28 seats (close to an absolute majority, which in the Balearic Islands is 30 deputies), and Vox would gain one seat and remain with 9, compared to the 8 it has now. The eco-sovereignist left of Més per Mallorca would remain with 4 seats, Més per Menorca would go from 2 to 3 seats, and Gent per Formentera would lose its current seat. But the one that would suffer the great defeat would be the PSOE, which has already announced that Francina Armengol will not be its candidate and which blames the wear and tear of socialists at the state level: it would fall from the current 18 deputies to 14. As is often said, it is only a poll, but everything indicates that the revalidation of the victory of the extreme right and the far-right is a done deal in the Balearic Islands.Naturally, those favored by the demographic winds immediately came out to boast, as reported by Ara Balears. In his peculiar way of expressing himself, the spokesperson for the Popular Party, Sebastià Sagreras, boasted that “there are only two possible scenarios, one in which the PP is close to an absolute majority and another in which it would approach an absolute majority, but would still have to reach agreements”. Sagreras doesn't realize that, in both scenarios, he says the same thing. However, no one takes away his greatest satisfaction: “The PSIB [acronym for the PSOE in the Balearic Islands] is sunk”. Very good, Sagreras.More disturbing is the assessment made of the survey by the spokesperson for Vox in the Parliament of the Balearic Islands, Manuela Cañadas, who admires and applauds the things her party has "achieved" by forcing the Popular Party to follow its discipline as partners/non-partners. Namely: "The repeal of the democratic memory law, the deregulation of rural and urban land to allow more construction, and the imposition of national priority for accessing social benefits". In other words: fascist denialism, wild real estate speculation taken to its ultimate consequences, and institutionalized racism. They are great advances, indeed. Cañadas forgot, because she must take it for granted, a frontal and constant attack against the Catalan language and public schools, which the PP has diligently carried out from the self-governing institutions.Now, however, the same PP of the Balearic Islands says that it considers the commitments acquired with Vox to be fulfilled in order to approve the budgets, and that they intend to distance themselves from them during this pre-election year. Comment from a Vox source to Ara Balears from a Vox source: “They want to appear as moderate centrists now that the legislature is ending, but it's a lie”. It cannot be summarized better. A conclusion as schematic as it is true: the PP will continue to sell (and will not lack buyers) the idea of being a liberal, moderate, and reformist center-right party. The reality is that it is and will continue to be the submissive partner of Vox. In the Balearic Islands and everywhere.

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.

Pope Leo XIV delivered this Monday in the Congress of Deputies a speech that contains the main message of his visit to Spain, where, as a reminder, in addition to Madrid and Catalonia, he plans to visit the Canary Islands. This message has to do with the drama of immigration and how governments and societies manage it, and it is based on a fundamental principle: the defense of human dignity. "Many men, women, and children are forced, by circumstances often dramatic, to abandon their communities and leave behind their loved ones, stories, and ties. This reality transcends any purely demographic or economic reading: it constitutes an eminently moral and legal issue. Wherever a person is discriminated against because of their national, ethnic, religious, or linguistic origin, or because of their economic or social status, the universal principle of the equal dignity of all human beings is gravely violated," stated the Holy Father.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has opened a rift in his own party with the adoption of the principle of "national priority", an emblem of the far-right Le Penist movement that has been spreading across the rest of Europe, but which the PP had never embraced. What's more, it had vehemently rejected it.

The PP will bring to a vote this Wednesday in Congress a text in which it asks to "prioritize access to aid, subsidies and public benefits, as well as access to protected housing and social rent, for people who prove a real, lasting and verifiable connection to the territory, inspired by the principle of national priority". In this way, the popular party affirms, they transfer to the lower house "the soul" of the agreement with Vox in Extremadura. Undoubtedly, this is a relevant move, as Alberto Núñez Feijóo decides to adopt a principle that has historically been linked to the far-right, and especially to French lepenism, despite the reservations expressed by prominent figures in his party such as Isabel Díaz Ayuso or Juanma Moreno Bonilla.

The Extremadura elections this Sunday have yielded two clear conclusions for the People's Party (PP). The first is that Alberto Núñez Feijóo is very likely to become the next Spanish president. The second, and more unsettling for the PP headquarters in Madrid, is that Santiago Abascal is equally likely to become vice president. In short, the left is losing ground, but the beneficiary is not the PP but Vox, which is capturing the most anti-Sánchez vote and, at the same time, the most anti-establishment vote—the vote of those who feel forgotten and want no more palliative measures but a complete overhaul. This angry vote is concentrated in rural areas and among young people, especially boys. Therefore, the person who should be most concerned about the Extremadura results right now is Juanma Moreno Bonilla of Andalusia, who will be gambling everything on his absolute majority in June. Sociologically, Extremadura is the region most similar to Andalusia. In Aragon, which holds elections on February 8, polls predict a similar growth for Vox as in Extremadura, which would leave Jorge Azcón in the same weak position he is in now. And in Castile and León, an absolute majority for Alfonso Fernández Mañueco in the March elections is unthinkable due to the fragmentation of the regional parliament and the rise of Vox. Therefore, the most important elections will be those in Andalusia, because if Moreno Bonilla loses his majority and is forced to form a coalition with Vox, Feijóo will also lose his main political supporter in the run-up to the general elections.

The president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, decided to call early regional elections in response to the blockade imposed by Vox. It was a risky gamble, a coin toss, and it backfired. The PP only managed to gain one more seat, bringing their total to 28, far short of the five needed for an absolute majority. This occurred against a backdrop of total collapse for the PSOE, which lost 10 seats, dropping from 28 to 18. Meanwhile, the far right emerged strongest from these elections, gaining 6 seats and increasing its representation from 5 to 11. The left-wing coalition, Unidas por Extremadura, also saw significant gains.

If just a decade ago, on the 40th anniversary of Francisco Franco's death, someone had told us that by the 50th anniversary a far-right political force that celebrates his legacy would be setting the pace of Spanish politics, we probably wouldn't have believed it. But that's exactly what's happening. On the eve of the dictator's fiftieth anniversary, Vox occupies the center of the Spanish political debate for several reasons, but the main one is that it is clearly influencing the actions of the main opposition party, the PP. The PP is currently negotiating with Vox to invest a new president of the Valencian Generalitat, and in five weeks, early elections will be held in Extremadura precisely because the president, María Guardiola, wants to stop depending on the far right. The president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, finds himself in a similar situation, having been left without a budget by Vox. But the fact is that all the actions of the PP's regional leaders, from Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who is holding elections in June, to Marga Prohens in the Balearic Islands, and including Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are carried out with one eye on Santiago Abascal's party, whether to seduce it or absorb it. And then there's the case of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who after three years as PP president has still not been able to define a clear party line for dealing with Vox. This leads him to endorse seemingly contradictory strategies, such as that of the Valencian PP, willing to adopt the far-right's positions to retain power, and those of Guardiola and Moreno Bonilla, who want to distance themselves. And there is still a third way, that of the Ayuso-Aznar tandem, which seeks to absorb Vox to reunify the right-wing space.

Crisis management experts always recommend acting quickly and decisively to prevent a crisis from dragging on longer than expected or creating new ones. This is precisely what happened in the Valencian Community with the resignation of Carlos Mazón as president of the Generalitat after being publicly humiliated by the victims' families at the state funeral held for the first anniversary of the devastating floods. Mazón announced his resignation, but surprisingly, and after a whole weekend of consultations between him and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, no one announced who would replace him. A week later, Valencians still don't know who the candidate for investiture will be and, therefore, who will be their highest public representative. Mazón's resignation, which was intended to end one crisis, has opened another in the form of an internal power struggle within the Valencian PP, as well as between the Valencian PP and the national party headquarters in Madrid, over who should succeed him. The disarray within the Valencian PP is so profound that its general secretary and candidate to replace Mazón, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, has asked Feijóo to appoint the candidate himself to avoid a complete mess. In Valencia, they believe the only way to prevent a fratricidal war between the different factions is for Madrid to decide. But, as it happens, Feijóo once again refuses to make a decision. And Vox is exploiting his indecision to highlight that the problem for Valencian governance is not them, but the PP.

Twenty-four hours after Alberto Núñez Feijóo stated at the PP congress that his preference is a solo government open to agreements with everyone except Bildu, the party's new secretary general, Miguel Tellado, sought to elevate what was merely a wish into a firm electoral commitment not to share a government with the far right. "There will be no coalition government," he said in a conversation with reporters. The fact that this commitment was made the day after the congress and not during the conclave, as would have been logical, and that Tellado did not want to verbalize it on camera, undermines the credibility of the announcement. What's worse, it demonstrates that the PP still has no clear position on the matter. So much so that the new PP spokesperson, Esther Muñoz, had not ruled out, shortly before Tellado's remarks, the possibility of Santiago Abascal eventually becoming Feijóo's vice president. "We'll have to wait and see the numbers," she had said.

When the PP was on the verge of winning the Moncloa elections in July 2023, Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party had at least one reason for hope: they had pushed Vox back a total of 19 seats—from 52 to 33. This led them to believe that over the course of the legislative period, they could erode the far-right party by convincing their electorate that only concentrating their votes on the PP could guarantee Pedro Sánchez's defeat in the future.

This week's budget pact between Vox and Mazón has two winners and one loser. The first are Abascal's party and the Valencian president himself, who have achieved their goals. And the second is Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has once again been overtaken by events and forced to bless a pact cooked up behind his back and goes beyond what he would have wanted on environmental, agricultural, and immigration issues.

1. The pact. Mazón's shamelessness and Feijóo's indolence have caused the Valencian crisis to leap into mainstream politics. In a state of denial, Mazón hasn't had the dignity to go home, nor has Feijóo the authority to make him back down. Abascal has seized the opportunity. He has laid out the program: climate denial, firmness against immigration, marginalization of the Valencian language, not a euro in the historical memory. Vox proposes it, Mazón signs it, and the PP leadership validates it. The step has been taken. This isn't occasional parliamentary support; it's a government pact. The PP officially opens its alliance with Vox, seemingly indifferent to the threats of the moment. Feijóo, busy as always looking for ideas to ridicule Sánchez, which is his way of understanding the role of the opposition, wasn't even the one who confirmed the strategic shift. He simply applauded Mazón's pact. Applying his trademark policy of least effort, Feijóo embraces an alliance that breaks the democratic front and shapes the party's future. No more ambiguities. Vox is the PP's priority partner, making the conditions clear from the outset. A warning that the other parties cannot ignore.

In Esquerra they accept the solution of postponing the comprehensive transfer of Cercanías Two years, and in the PSC too, of course, with the argument that they couldn't make the transfer with the workers against it and because the Generalitat doesn't have enough staff for the trains right now. Since the PSOE-ERC agreement is from November 2023, that is, a year and four months ago, it seems they haven't had time to integrate the workers without the need for this extension. Then, in November 2023, they told us "Renfe will no longer be part of the lives of the citizens of Catalonia." Well, a year and four months later, like in Monterroso's tale, every day when we wake up, the Renfe dinosaur is still there. In other words, the workers are protected, but the service yesterday was once again a disaster, with delays and cancellations as if there were a strike. Yesterday, on TV3, Oriol Junqueras said that if the PSOE doesn't comply with the agreements, it won't have a budget for 2026. So? This is dangerous. We've already normalized the idea of punishing a government by cutting its budget. But it's the people who are being punished.

The Valencian right and far right are currently imploding due to internal disputes, management errors and a hellish parliamentary arithmetic. The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, is currently the main problem of the bloc that won the regional and municipal elections of 2023 and rushed to occupy all the positions of power where PP and Vox added up. Mazón remains in his place surrounded by a small group of faithful, but both the state leadership and some internal factions of the party in Valencia have already begun to move because they consider him too heavy a burden to face the next elections with guarantees. Vox has also opened up to looking for a solution because it fears being dragged down by Mazón's discredit, since each time they must be the ones to save his skin in Les Corts, as will presumably happen if the PSPV finally presents a motion of censure. It is not ruled out that, depending on what happens in the next few days, we will see Vox asking for the head of Mazón.

Do you want the boys and girls of the Valencian Community (not the Valencian Country) to receive school education in the language that we have been prohibiting for centuries by all means, including violent ones, until we have lost its value in use; a language that we have persecuted to give its speakers a complex and make them believe that they spoke a dialect, ignoring the existence of Ausiàs March, Joanot Martorell, Joan Fuster or Raimon, and that we have turned into a language marked as problematic in contrast to the normal one, and about which we have lied to their conscience. Of this same language in other territories (not countries) of separatists in order to avoid the danger that they might come to believe members of a national identity differentiated from the Castilian-Spanish, which is the only mission that has moved us, moves us and will move us to offer new glories in Spain, while with the other hand we do business? Say No in any linguistic imposition. Check the box for the No.