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February 21, 2022 - 7:15am
Last week, Vox’s Right-wing populist party made headlines after outperforming expectations in a regional election. As the dust settled, there were questions as to what this might mean for the state of play nationally.
We didn’t have to wait long to find out. Over the weekend, a shock poll showed Vox surging into second place — ahead of the Partido Popular (PP), the mainstream party of the Right. The trend was confirmed in a second poll, which also shows Vox overtaking the PP.
Spanish SHOCK poll:
PSOE 25.4%
VOX 22.1% (!!)
PP 21.7%
UP 11.3%Vox is projected for around 84 seats according to this poll, though a right-wing coalition would be a few seats short of a majority
(via @electo_mania) pic.twitter.com/1kmCGlNVTX
— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) February 19, 2022
Vox is a relative newcomer. Formed as a split from the PP in 2013, it made little impact in the 2015 and 2016 general elections. But in 2019 it broke the mould of modern Spanish politics — taking 10% of the vote in the first of the two general elections that year and 15% in the second. The latest polls put the party’s vote share at over 20%.
Though concerns over immigration and austerity played their part, the most important factor was specific to Spain: the constitutional crisis of 2017-18, which followed the attempt of the Catalan government to hold an independence referendum. Vox positioned itself as the party of hardline anti-separatism — opposing even the partial autonomy granted to Catalonia and other regions.
The latest surge in Vox support comes at the expense of the Partido Popular. The PP is currently riven by a bitter internal dispute between its national leadership and its rising star, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the charismatic president of the Madrid region.
Unless this is resolved, the PP risks sharing the fate of its French and Italian sister parties. In France, the only reason why the conservative presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, has a chance of making it through to the second round is that the populist vote is evenly split between Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour. Meanwhile in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia is now a bit-player in a Right-wing electoral bloc dominated by populists.
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Subscribe……..and the left, centre left and centre right will wail and gnash their teeth and blame everyone but themselves as to why there is this turn to ‘populist’ figures and parties.
And, they, dare to call the electorate ‘stupid’ and ‘bigoted’. How stupid and bigoted can somebody be !
Viva Espania!
Just because a party in 2022 is “right wing” does not mean it is a return to dictatorship. Dictatorships these days are often of the left.
New Zealand and Canada come to mind…..
spot on…I have given up (admittedly hardly a riveting argument) on Left and Right as meaning anything…I think Davod Goodhart’s *Anywhere’s and Somewhere’s* is a far better idea for understanding precisely what’s going on when self satisfied chattering class types of *the left* start persecuting workers because they’re not the correct sort of *left*
Once again, I am astonished to see that the UnHerd’s national political journalists fail to appreciate the political moment of covidism.
Certainly concerns over immigration “play their part” in the Spanish political discourse, as elsewhere in Europe. And yes, the Catalonia issue is clearly on many people’s minds.
But it is at least worth noting that VOX was the only party to oppose Spain’s draconian lockdowns and vaccine passport requirements. I know if I were Spanish they would have my full support in this election.
Why no discussion of this?
I wonder how Fratelli d’Italia will fare as they share many of the traits you mention with Vox.
Refreshing to find that Peter Franklin is content to describe the newly second place Vox Party in Spain as ‘populist’ rather than extreme this or extreme that. It’s conservatism is much like that of centre-right parties of 20th century New Zealand & Canada, places now controlled by left-wing extremists.
The academic Miguel Quintana Paz writes sense about Vox, such as here.https://theobjective.com/elsubjetivo/opinion/2022-02-17/frenar-vox-pasos/
twitter @QuintanaPaz
MQP recently tweeted that the leader of the established conservative party Pablo Casado is now being hailed by the left press for his pragmatism in holding the line against robust conservatism. Luckily, the rank-and-file of the Popular Party want someone unwilling to make backroom deals with the Socialists who acts and speak like a conservative and is ready to match the Spanish left by working for unity on the democratically-minded Spanish right.
This is the second article on Unherd in just over a week about Vox. The first described them as far right, which received some pushback in the comments. This article describes them as right wing populist, but still compares them with Le Pen et al, with the undertone that they are somehow problematic and pose a threat. We can get this sort of analysis from the mainstream media, but I would have expected something a little more from Unherd. If the surge in support for Vox really is problematic, then the reasons should be spelt out. And if the surge in support signifies a wider trend, then this needs some analysis. Otherwise, the article just comes across as “OMG! These people are challenging the accepted political establishment!”.