The big news from the elections in Castile and León is that, for the first time in a long time, the expectations predicting a surge for Vox have not materialized. Polls forecasting a drop for the People's Party (PP) and a Vox surge to 19 seats and over 20% of the vote have instead led to a scenario that reinforces the two-party system, with both the PP and the Socialists gaining more seats (+2) than Vox (+1). Therefore, it is legitimate to ask whether the far-right wave is reaching its peak, especially considering that the campaign coincided with Donald Trump's escalating involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. However, two points need to be clarified. Vox's rise hasn't been as significant because it was already starting from a strong position in 2022, when it obtained 17.6% of the vote and 13 seats. The electoral system, especially in a territory with many constituencies, benefits the two major parties and disadvantages third parties, as has been the case. The second point is that, while the far right is not growing as much, the hegemony of the right is consolidating.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has concluded that to reach La Moncloa (the Prime Minister's residence) he needs to coexist with uncomfortable neighbors, such as Vox. There is, therefore, no alternative. In fact, what he now needs to demonstrate is that PP-Vox governments work, and that this is a model that can be replicated in the Spanish executive branch. The dream of governing alone, already difficult for most of his supporters, is a distant prospect. malesThis is arithmetically impossible in a Parliament where Catalan and Basque votes also come into play, as is the case in the Congress. However, this coexistence can be, for many reasons, even more complex than the one Pedro Sánchez faces with his partners. Why? Because the political paradigm is changing at breakneck speed before our very eyes.

Aragon goes to the polls this Sunday for the first time in early elections, not coinciding with other elections, but there is very little doubt about the outcome. The conservative majority (PP+Vox+PAR), which currently holds 36 of the 67 seats, is expected to rise above 40, in line with the conservative wave sweeping Spain, but which, as was already evident in Extremadura, primarily benefits the far right. There is also no doubt that the PP will be the leading party and that, therefore, Jorge Azcón is the most likely candidate to be re-elected president. However, in the final days of the campaign, Azcón has appeared tense and agitated, particularly raising his voice against Vox. Why? Because, like María Guardiola before him, he called early elections to overcome Vox's obstruction of the budget, and now everything suggests that he will be even more hamstrung by Santiago Abascal's party. In short, a move designed to strengthen the PP may end up strengthening Vox and complicating life for the Aragonese president.

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.

Feijóo, the man who whispered in the ears of the Basques and Catalans, congratulated the president of the Autonomous City of Melilla, the notoriously powerful Juan José Imbroda, with the phrase, "I don't know what your wife gives you, but you look better every day," which was, naturally, warmly applauded by the audience. Imbroda must have thought it a nice compliment, and his wife probably did too, if she shares her husband's and his party colleagues' worldview. They are the ones who talk about "gender ideology," "feminazis," and false accusations of assault or rape, while lamenting that "you can't say anything anymore" and that "they'll have to fill out a form" to have sex, because of the "gender dictatorship" they see everywhere.

All roads lead to Rome. After Mazón announced his resignation, a year late, the first initiative both he and Feijóo took was to ask Vox to get to work so they could immediately reach an agreement and form a new government. This definitively puts an end to the ambiguities. Vox is winning the battle on the right. And the PP now acknowledges that Vox holds all the cards. This is Feijóo's greatest success. When he arrived, the PP was hegemonic on the right, and Vox was just beginning to make its presence felt. Now it is indispensable. Only Vox can bring him to power, and at the same time, it continues to chip away at his support and take away votes from people who, when faced with the choice, when the neo-authoritarian excesses of the far right are no longer taboo in the fight against the evil personified by President Sánchez, end up preferring the model to the copy. In other words, the reactionary wave that is destabilizing Europe is taking hold in a large part of Spain.

If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will immediately jump out to save itself. However, if it is placed in cold water and the temperature is gradually increased, the frog will not perceive the danger and will be boiled to death without attempting to escape. This phenomenon, known as "boiled frog syndrome," describes a process of gradual adaptation to change that can have tragic and irreversible consequences. It is a strategy commonly used to explain various social and political phenomena, including the rise of Nazism and its tragic outcome in the form of genocide. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that Hitler would have gained the support of German citizens if he had run in the 1933 elections with a political platform that included his plan to exterminate Jews, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other minorities through a sophisticated system of extermination camps and Cameroons. Such a policy would not have found support among the German public. No one, not even those most convinced of the superiority of the Aryan race, would probably have supported a party that upheld such barbarity in its political ideology.

I take this title from the article in the book of poems and scattered notesThe police will be in force (Documenta, 2025) by the eminent Enric Casasses, because the author's poetic prose is an invitation to look at life in general, and life in Catalan in particular, with the lack of inhibition of someone who sees it clearly and knows how to say it, which is what one must adopt to go out into the world when hysteria triumphs.

Let's not fool ourselves. Achieving official status for Catalan in the European Union is no easy task, as it is an issue that raises many concerns in other countries, and the decision must be made unanimously. The Spanish government, in order to fulfill the commitments signed with Junts, intends for the European Union's General Affairs Council to vote on the matter this Tuesday after a diplomatic offensive aimed at overcoming the reluctance of the most hesitant countries, such as the Baltic countries, where there is a significant Russian-speaking minority that could demand the same.