For the first time since the death of Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, a far-right party has gained significant representation in Spain.
On Sunday night, the anti-immigrant party Vox shocked political observers when it won 12 out of 109 seats in the left-wing bastion of Andalusia — approximately 11 per cent of the popular vote.
The vote may bring the end to 36 years of uninterrupted Socialist Party rule in the southern Spanish region and act as a sign of things to come in 2019, a key election year.
Vox is a nationalist party that was founded in 2013 by breakaway members of Spain’s conservative Popular Party. Before Sunday night, the party had been a marginal political actor but saw a sharp increase in support in 2017 after a terrorist attack in Barcelona and the illegal independence referendum in Catalonia.
Some of the main pillars of Vox’s political campaign include building massive walls at Spain’s land borders with Morocco, increasing deportations, and immediately suspending Catalonia’s home rule.
“We urgently need an impassible WALL and to expel the invaders immediately,” tweeted Vox’s president Santiago Abascal in response to hundreds of migrants climbing over Spain’s heavily enforced border in June of this year, echoing calls by US President Donald Trump.
While Vox’s leadership has expressed its distrust of certain immigrant groups such as Muslims, it is not outwardly antisemitic and has voiced its strong support for Israel.
Unlike other European far-right forces, Vox does support the European Union, while also calling for Spain to “recover its weight in Europe and the world.”
Still, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted her “warmest” congratulations to her “friends from Vox” after the results from the Andalusian elections were announced.
While the party was far from winning a majority in Andalusia, the chances of it being the part of a ruling coalition are strong.
The Socialist Party attracted the most support but may not receive the backing it needs from other parties, with the left just falling short of a majority.
A right-wing coalition is now a likely outcome, with Vox potentially governing alongside the Popular Party and Ciudadanos (Citizens), another relatively new force on Spain’s political scene that is strongly opposed to Catalan separatism.
However, whether the Popular Party and Ciudadanos want to align themselves with Vox is still unknown.
The party hopes that the momentum from the Andalusian elections will carry forward to May 2019, when Spain will hold municipal, regional and European elections. The shaky political situation at a national level could also trigger general elections before they are due in 2020.
“The Reconquista (reconquest) is starting in Andalusia and will spread to the rest of Spain,” the party wrote on its Twitter account on Sunday night, invoking the term used for the historical period in which Christians gained control of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims.
Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acknowledged the need to fight this far-right attitude going forward.
He said on Monday: “The results of Andalusia reinforce our commitment to defending the constitution and democracy in the face of fear.”
