Spain’s Far-Right Vox Eyes Potential Coalition with Leading Popular Party

Members of the far-right Vox party rally in the streets holding patriotic Spanish flags. (Pixabay)

Recent polls show Isabel Diaz Ayuso, leader of the conservative Popular Party and Madrid’s regional president, in the lead for Spain’s regional elections on May 4. However,  achieving a majority in the Spanish Parliament will likely require a coalition government, and, to that end, the public has turned to the far-right Vox party, the third-largest party in Spain’s Parliament.

Ayuso has “batted away” speculations regarding a potential coalition, remarking that she wishes to “govern alone.” Despite the fact that many parties across the aisle have criticized Vox because of their view that immigrant minors burden regional finances, 78 percent of conservative Popular Party voters favor a coalition with the far-right party.

Vox, led in the Madrid region by Rocio Monasterio, a Spanish-Cuban architect, businesswoman, and politician, has backed the agenda of the ultraconservative Catholic group Hazte Oir, which seeks to repeal laws protecting LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. Vox has committed itself to restricting abortion and euthanasia, as well as repealing laws that criminalize discrimination based on sexual orientation. Hazte Oir also hopes to end the ban on conversion therapy.

Spanish leftist parties announced on April 21 that they would take legal action against Vox for their use of controversial billboards in the final days before the regional elections. The billboards use the word mena, a derogatory term referencing unaccompanied immigrant minors. The billboards, which read “4,700 euros a month for a mena. 426 euros a month for your grandmother’s pension,” aim to highlight what some consider an unfair distribution of financial resources. Equality Minister Irene Montero and Social Affairs Minister Ione Belarra, both members of the leftist Unidas Podemos party, filed complaints with the public prosecution services, alleging the billboards amounted to hate crimes. 

The billboards, put up in late April in the busy Madrid train station of Puerta del Sol, attracted major attention online. Most have reacted negatively to them, with calls for the station to take them down. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo tweeted, “What you’ve done with those signs, pointing at boys and girls, at minors who come to our country, sometimes fleeing terrible situations, without families, having been victims of very serious crimes during their journeys—that’s called inhumanity, hatred.”