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.

Questioning electoral results is a strategy employed by the global far-right, which Vox has now imported to Spain, but that does not make it any less dangerous. Not long ago, Donald Trump still had not accepted his 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden, even though there is no evidence to suggest he won those elections. Now, Santiago Abascal, and to a lesser extent also the PP with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are stirring up the specter of electoral fraud and accusing Pedro Sánchez of preparing a fix for the upcoming general elections.

[This analysis was originally published on May 11 and has been updated on October 6, once Pedro Sánchez has already called for elections and the PP and Vox have once again warned of the risk of electoral fraud]

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.