“The Europe of the future is taking shape and changes are happening faster than expected. The resounding victory of Alternative for Germany in Saxony-Anhalt is a clear sign. We must pay attention to the evolution of the CDU, the German conservative party, more conservative than Christian democratic. Chancellor Merz ’s party could break apart. In two years, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, and Alice Weidel, three women, will play a key role in European politics. Vox must work to be part of that leadership core within two years. We will try.”
Read more Six edges of the Ceuta crisis that will have repercussions
A director from the Disenso foundation, Vox’s think tank, speaks. Enthusiastic about AfD’s rise in Germany and cautious about the polls published in Spain. “It’s not done. Beware of euphoria, beware of starting to divide ministries prematurely. It’s not done. Despite being at its worst moment, Pedro Sánchez maintains a consistent electoral base; the PSOE never falls below one hundred deputies, as happened ten years ago. With the heat and tension of an electoral campaign, Sánchez could easily surpass one hundred and twenty deputies. Vox seems to have consolidated more than sixty seats, but beware of premature euphoria. With current data, if Vox dropped three points, the scenario would be different,” he says. “One must not be complacent,” he insists.
Sources from the Disenso foundation say Vox has ensured that the U.S. and Israel respect the Spanish sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla
The latest reliable polls published after August place the PSOE at around 105 deputies. A significant drop, but not a collapse. Its base could be around 27% today. The Popular Party remains steady between 31% and 33%, around 133 seats, a figure equal to or lower than the last general elections, since it is Vox that capitalizes on the wave of discontent, intensified by the Ceuta drama. Vox could exceed 18% today and approach 70 deputies. With that result, the party with the green emblem would acquire a crucial role in Spanish politics.
The two right-wing parties could sum up to 50%, half of the votes cast, but Alberto Núñez Feijóo would strictly depend on Vox, since the PSOE and its left-wing allies would be in a position to surpass the PP in Congress and perhaps present winning joint candidacies in the Senate. There would be no room for other majorities unless the PSOE entered into crisis and Sánchez was replaced by a general secretary favorable to ‘national concertation’ with the Populars. That is why Disenso says nothing should be taken for granted. To avoid contributing to the mobilization of the left and to avoid giving wings to a triumphant PP.
“Relations with the Popular Party have improved. The agreements in the autonomous communities are working well and are gaining respectability among influential social sectors. This is important,” adds our interlocutor.
Indeed, Vox is avoiding clashing with the PP in the Ceuta battle, but it has set a threshold for its allies: to activate article 102 of the Constitution in Congress and accuse the Prime Minister of “high treason” before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court. Abascal has taken up an idea outlined in June, before the Ceuta crisis, by the veteran jurist Pedro Cruz Villalón, former president of the Constitutional Court, a magistrate who in the 1990s was supported by the PSOE. Article 102 would be the path for a Spanish-style impeachment. That idea from a law professors’ roundtable is now Vox’s banner. High treason. Beat that, Núñez Feijóo.
Read more The PNV always counts
From the first minute, Abascal has accused Sánchez of being subject to King Mohamed VI, but he has never directly attacked Morocco, a preferred ally of the United States and Israel. Last Thursday, Vox was the only party in Congress to vote against the processing of a bill to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis who request it, an initiative that greatly displeases Rabat. The PP abstained.
“Look,” says the voice from Disenso, “in recent weeks Vox has managed to get the governments of the United States and Israel to recognize and defend Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. It could have been otherwise. They had reasons to stay on the sidelines or even give us a scare, since Sánchez has confronted them. Vox has spoken with Americans and Israelis. A week ago, the president of the Heritage Foundation, very influential today at the White House, clearly spoke in favor of the Spanish sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla at the Madrid Forum meeting held in Santiago, Chile. These things are not improvised.” [The Madrid Forum is a body that groups right-wing and far-right parties and groups from Latin America, created in 2020 under Vox’s impulse as a response to the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, left-wing platforms]. Another contextual fact: the President of the United States, Donald Trump, openly opposed to the UK Labour government, has just supported the reunification of Ireland and Argentina’s claim over the Falkland Islands, where the British flag flies.
“Beware of triumphalism, Sánchez has a solid electoral base,” they warn
Curiosity about Catalonia. They like Sílvia Orriols and see in Aliança Catalana a valuable battering ram. They see the possibility of breaking one of the pillars of Spanish politics since the transition: the Catalan center-left majority that ultimately saves the PSOE. The pillar that gave Sánchez victory in the 2018 no-confidence motion, when PDECat (formerly CDC, now Junts) supported an initiative that already had ERC’s votes. The PSOE has governed eight years with the inconsistent and contradictory support of forces that participated in the founding of the Assemblea de Catalunya in 1973. The PSC and its alliance policy are today the main pillar of the PSOE, given the decline of Andalusian socialism. Aliança Catalana could break that mechanism and that would mean a change of dynamics in Spain, perhaps of very long duration.
But Orriols wants the immediate independence of Catalonia. Our interlocutor smiles. That discourse today does not worry anyone in Madrid DF. What matters about the Catalan AfD is the dynamic it sets in motion. Aliança amplifies Vox’s discourse, reinforces it, gives it depth in the Catalan-speaking middle classes, and will give them votes if Orriols’s group does not run in the general elections. It’s an almost perfect business.
In an interview published by La Vanguardia last November, Santiago Abascal said the following: “I believe that the rejection of massive immigration of people influenced by Islamic fanaticism will unify Spain.”
Read more Pradales: “I see Feijóo obsessed with Vox, the M-30 ecosystem has infected him”
