Voters speak
From a doctor from Almeria to a freelancer from Madrid, these are the reasons for some of the 3.6 million voters of Vox
1 The awakening
Upon entering the region of Murcia, the sky becomes leaden. There is orange alert for a new cold drop. In the previous one, in September, several people died; torrents razed crops, streets and houses; there were millions of losses, and the Mar Menor ended up poisoned, with a scab of dead fish floating on the shore. The goters start painting the asphalt when we meet at a roadside restaurant with Daniel Ruiz, 45, divorced with two children, agricultural engineer, voter and Vox affiliate. He exercises advisory and supervisory tasks for a citrus company with tens of hectares between Murcia and Almeria. He spends the day in the car between crops. You saw raincoat, boots of mount. He says that the first thing that hooked him on Vox was “the video of the elephant of Alejo Vidal-Quadras”. In that clip, the historic PP politician, then co-founder and fleeting president of Vox (left training in 2015), explains with cartoons that one of Spain's problems is its public administration. "The elephant is the state," he says. "That complex, gigantic, inefficient shed." He talks about autonomies, town halls, councils, public companies ... He concludes that there is a "suffered majority who work more than six months each year to feed the elephant and the gangster riding it." He proposes a solution: change the pachyderm for a horse.
"I got your message," says Ruiz. “Vox was in solidarity with those of us who worked. The PP had left us abandoned to the productive sectors, to families. The middle classes were disappearing. The bulk of the vote belongs to those who suffer the consequences of the crisis. I see it very clearly. ” He not only hooked him as a voter. In 2015 he was the regional candidate of the party (he did not reach 1% of the votes) and held a regional vice secretary until one year ago. Ruiz is defined as "moderately conservative in the ideologically and economically liberal." He was a voter of the PP until 2011. He is a resident in San Pedro del Pinatar, where Vox obtained 33.93% in the generals of November 10. Review controversial issues: "The theme of feminism is radical." He believes that "gender ideology is contrary to the constitutional right to effective equality." He adds: “More and more women sympathize with Vox because they value their safety and that of their children, they want peace of mind to go down the street. And that the herds of criminals are not allowed to run at ease. They do not see that they come people [migrants] who do not enter through legal channels, whether minor or not, who wander loose on the street. ” Another issue: “Look, we can't control the weather. I am not denialist, I simply understand climate change as a human person. The weather changes, yes. And people are human. You are right. This is how we want it or not. ”
That night, thunder is heard while Ana, the supposed name of a 35-year-old soldier from the San Javier air base (Murcia), married, with three daughters and a Vox voter, speaks of "order, security, authority." He misses it, he says, in politics, on the streets, in school. He is worried about Catalonia (“there it is necessary to make things clear”). And he complains about the children of migrants. He explains that there are barely any Spanish students left in the school of his children. On other occasions he voted to the PP and Cs. Between her and her husband they raise 2,200 euros a month. They live "without waste." He then attacks the politicians: “How do they live? Vox proposes to reduce the guild of those who suck the boat. ”
2 A returned emigrant
Manuel Aroca carries a cigarette in one hand, the umbrella in the other, and moves through waterlogged streets where the water pulls hard towards the sea. Tread with rubber boots between rows of villas in Los Alcázares (Murcia), a summer paradise of the middle class of all Europe under a downpour. Aroca, 64, is a retired metal worker, a returned emigrant from Germany. All his life he voted socialist, he says. Until the November elections.
"Why has the vote changed?" What does Vox offer?
- Sometimes I think: Franco come back. Solutions is what we want.
Aroca has been out of Spain since adolescence. He left in the footsteps of his family. He returned to Murcia almost five decades later with the intention of enjoying the German pension. He settled with his mother in this little vest on the coast, whose door they open to us. It is one of the few that reside here regularly. The owners of neighboring homes call the mobile to summarize the state in which they have been. There are buried garages; The sidewalks have become waterfalls. These last torrential rains add to those of September, and Aroca speaks of the dana (isolated depression at high levels, or cold drop) as if it were another key to the vote: "We feel helpless."
“Now I don't see Vox as an extreme right. Ask me in a year to see how things are going ”
Manuel Aroca
Emigrant returned and retired. 64 years Los Alcazares (Murcia)After almost five decades in Germany, he has returned to his homeland as a retiree. He was a socialist voter until the last general elections.
Since he returned to Spain in 2018 he has seen “things” that he does not like. "I say: let's see if voting for Vox there is someone who puts this right." It refers to: “The fuss of Catalonia. To this of immigrants: return them. And, for example, with my mother, that you go down the street and throw your bag ... ” The lady recounts a robbery committed by "Moors" years ago and another incident with "some Romanians." "On the streets you don't go safe," adds Aroca. "I'm scared. I perceive insecurity. And the immigrants ... come, yes, but with a contract like we did in Germany. ”
"Did you feel racism in Germany?"
"At first they didn't want us anywhere." The Germans saw us as if we were going to take away their work.
- Do you think there is a similar racism in Spain today?
"Yes, yes, it's more or less as it happened to us." But I am not interested in that, now I am here, retired, and what worries me is crime, that a woman cannot go at night on the street.
3 A unemployed
On the way to Cartagena, skeletons of the real estate bubble are seen with the Mar Menor scrambled in the background. Under black clouds, the area looks like a sci-fi movie set. Here the crisis hit with intensity. In 2011, Murcia was among the Spanish regions where employment in construction and the sale of houses had fallen the most. In 2014, the risk of poverty had escalated to almost half of the population. Today has been reduced, but still affects a third.
“Here people arrive by plane, by boat, as they please. This is Bernarda's pussy, ”argues Carlos Márquez, a 49-year-old unemployed, voter and affiliate of Vox in Cartagena. "The solution? Any person who has not worked for more than two years, without contributing, outside. Criminals who are foreigners, to their country. ” He adds: “As soon as they disembark, they are given 650 turkeys. They are taking advantage of the system, they are not integrated. And by rooting they bring their wife with five children. There is no country to endure it. ”
“The news are lying to us. I get informed by Facebook, friends and social networks ”
Carlos Marquez
Unemployed. 49 years. Cartagena (Murcia)Voter and Vox affiliate (unsubscribed shortly after this interview). He claims to share 70% of the ideology of this party.
Márquez's apartment is in a humble building. The hall is full of junk. His dog, who runs around the room, is called Sori, a Japanese name that refers to the curvature of the samurai swords. There are Catalan hanging everywhere. The TV is on. And a taco of photocopies with his curriculum rests on the table. Marquez sits on the couch next to the fishbowl. He has glasses with thick crystals that make his eyes tiny. He wears sweatpants and a martial arts sweatshirt. It is black jujitsu belt .
Divorced and without children. He has been a carpenter, waiter, sailor, diver, martial arts instructor, commercial, escort, security guard and businessman, until things got ugly. "We are a very impoverished region." He joined Vox because he shares "70%" of his speech. The other 30% has to do with religion. He does not like how the party, in Murcia, has become an "elitist club" governed by "the Kikos, Opus Dei and kids from Murcia." In 2019, he filed a complaint for alleged embezzlement against three Vox leaders in Murcia. He claimed to have contributed his "grain of sand" to force the resignation of the party's dome two weeks after his 10-N victory. (A few weeks after this interview, Márquez dropped out as an affiliate).
Describe the situation: "I would not say of the preambiente of civil war, but of confrontation between Spaniards". It addresses "the issue of feminism": "A woman to enforce her rights does not have to lower her panties in the street and piss or take off her tits." Talk about “beach bars” financed with public money that support this. "They don't represent me, and I'm a feminist."
To the question of how it is reported, he answers: "I have not seen the newscasts for a while because they are lying to us." He prefers to be guided “by Facebook, by friends, by social networks or by certain groups that I have that are more reliable. I start comparing the news with what comes to me on the other hand, which is proven information, and does not match at all. "Call me a conspiracy," he says of the Catalan conflict, but he is convinced that it will be resolved when he "stops being useful" and decides to stop it "from rennet", which for the moment "does not interest them." When asked who he means, he replies: "Bilderberg, Soros, people of that size." (Santiago Abascal has cited these same names to explain alleged plots that seek to sow “chaos” in Europe and “liquidate” the middle class).
Then he takes between the fingers a figurine of the dictator Franco who rests in the cupboard next to a censer and the title of jiu-jitsu. "Uncle Paco," he calls. “A controversial man. I do not find it unpleasant. With Franco we had no terrorism. They were shot. Now you have terrorists with public salaries in the Basque Country. ”
4 Foremen
Loubna Hamdai is not a Vox voter, but an intercultural mediator of Moroccan origin who works in Torre-Pacheco, a Murcian agricultural town with 36,000 inhabitants and 26% immigration. We have just met her at a meeting with NGO officials in which they have explained a certain “breeding ground”: “The crisis has increased poverty rates that make migrants become the scapegoat: they begin to perceive themselves as a competitor for resources, which are scarce. ” Then Loubna guides to the margins of the municipality, where a cinderella slum is deployed in which migrants tend to live in sub-housing. There passes a man pushing a supermarket cart loaded with drums and water bottles. He says his name is Felix Perez and he is 50 years old. She has her hair in a ponytail and a horse's neck tattoo appears. He is a farrier and a tamer. "Well, it was," twists the gesture. "Now nobody gives me work." He just got over cancer. Radiation therapy has left him weak. He has no money to fix his teeth, he adds, while replacing it with his fingers. "I've had streaks in my life that I've had a hard time, but as never before." It comes from filling the carafes in a neighbor's house, drinking water, scrubbing and washing, because they have been cut. It has no income, although it expects to start receiving the basic insertion income (430 euros). He had been "25 years" without going to the polls. But this time he voted for Vox. “What has moved me to vote? That this can't go on like this. That every day they gain more weight those who are already fat and the weak, like me, we notice more the weakness. I think Vox looks more for the lower class than the other parties. ” Remember the moment he heard about the training for the first time: “It was at the bar where I was eating with a Caritas ticket, because I already tell you that I don't even have lunch. That day, a man put me a Vox sticker here, ”and the flap is indicated. Then he continues on his way, pushing the car until his figure disappears.
"Fat people continue to gain weight and the weak increasingly notice the weakness"
Felix Perez
Horse-breaker. 50 years. Torre-Pacheco (Murcia)After recovering from cancer, he does not have any income. He had not been going to the polls for 25 years, until the 10N opted for Vox.
The outskirts of Torre-Pacheco, where Vox took 38% off 10-N, is a succession of orchards where artichokes, lettuce, broccoli grow. On a hill, about thirty women tilt their backs to pluck weeds from an arugula field. They are strong and small, migrants of mostly Latino origin. As soon as they stop talking to outsiders, the foreground of the foremen appears. Two Spanish males. Boots full of mud. Vox voters. "There are a number of problems in Spain that everyone camouflages," one reflects without giving his name. “But Vox says things as they are. What everyone thinks. And in a way that is understood. ” The other asks: "How is there so much immigration when there is so much unemployment?" And they smoke and the sun goes down and the cold and shadows envelop them and the women continue with their backs bent on the ground.
5 The poorest 1%
In Níjar (Almería), the municipality with more than 20,000 lower income inhabitants in Spain, there is a grayish avenue that reminds people of the West. In it there is a bar on whose premises the owner has placed a flag of Spain to distinguish it "from those who are Nigerians, and those others, Moroccans." The town has 41% immigration. The neighbors survive with just over 6,000 euros a year on average. Vox won 10-N with 35% of the vote. And the bar is in a census section that corresponds to the poorest 1% of the entire country. Next to it is a game room called Joker at whose door bicycles are piled up: it is the official transport of migrants working in the field. Inside there only seems to be foreigners. They speak Spanish with accents of different origins. The person in charge comments that they usually share the prize among everyone in solidarity.
On the outskirts, Arabs roam with chilaba and sub-Saharan people pass by bicycle. The sunset cuts its silhouette when they cross in front of a graffiti in the ditch: “Vota Vox”. In the union La Unión, José Salazar, a 42-year-old truck driver, speaks as if the world in which he grew up was fading away. “Before we were very good. Double bass. We have been able to feed our children, pay our mortgages, live a little better. ” Then, he adds, "immigration got in and ... I don't blame them, but the job is running out." He continues: “We don't want a dictatorship, but we do want a party that doesn't fool us. The working middle class has no support. First you have to feed those you have at home and then, what you have, those outside. ” In his opinion, "the only party that is listening to the people is Vox." Francisco Martín, one of those responsible for the alhóndiga, a 45-year-old agricultural engineer, nods at his side: "I think very interesting what Iván Espinosa de los Monteros says: 'To create wealth you have to lower taxes."
Nearby, in the city of Almeria, José Esteban, 24, has just “peeled off” at his Dominican cousin's hair salon. At the door, a video is recorded and uploaded to Instagram: "I am a member of Vox!" Esteban is "half immigrant", son of Dominican and Spanish, and clarifies that the video was a joke. But he did vote for Vox on 10-N. He did it, he says, by immigration: “I do not see well that subsidies are given to foreigners when Spaniards who really need it do not support them. And there is more violence committed by immigrants. ”
“There is more violence committed by immigrants. There are good ones, but they are a minority ”
José Esteban
Waiter. 24 years. AlmeriaSon of Dominican and Spanish, is defined as "immigrant medium". He explains his vote to Vox: "I do not see well that grants are given to foreigners when Spaniards who really need it do not support them."
"Surprise your speech, knowing its origin."
—When I was little, I used to be with immigrants and everything went wrong. There are good ones, but they are a minority. If you are stealing, raping, that's why stay in your country. They do nothing good.
6 Women in Vistalegre
Cloti and Oti are two women from Roquetas de Mar (Almería) and they say that they finally put face on the trip to the so-called Vistalegre “Plus Ultra”, a Vox act held in October 2019 in Madrid. The formation brought together more than 10,000 people with the claim of "defending Spain and its unity, its sovereignty and freedom against the pro-dictatorship." There was a month left for the elections in which Vox placed itself as the third force, with 3.6 million votes. From the trip there are good memories that Cloti and Oti comment now, at the house of the first. "It was you who called me to go," says one. “And you have bundled me now for this interview. Barça one, Real Madrid one! ”, The other responds.
Clotilde Cerrudo, 50, married and mother of two daughters, a doctor in front of a small private center, has opened the doors of her chalet with a garden, palm trees and pool, and has taken some snacks. “I voted for Vox because I think it's an exciting game that defends what I've always thought. It is provided. Support my religious values. And my job. " He met him through his patients before the Andalusian elections of 2018. Undermined by the “drift” of the PP in morals and in the defense of Spain, he decided to join. He had never militated in politics. He was attracted to self-financing: "An ordinary citizen does not have to pay for the propaganda of any party."
“Normal is heterosexuality. And don't sell me laws that say everything goes ”
Clotilde Cerrudo
Medical 50 years. Roquetas de Mar (Almería)Voter and affiliate of Vox, "feels" part of this party and believes that the formation defends their religious ideas.
Cloti is an active member of the parish and neighborhood association. She was a missionary in Honduras. At the entrance of his house there is a stamp by José María Escrivá de Balaguer. On abortion, he explains, the current law has de facto "legalized" this practice. “What does Vox say? Let's try to have fewer abortions by providing comprehensive social assistance to women who do not love the child. ” On euthanasia: "I can not conceive." On feminism: “Men and women are different. In the biological. In the way of thinking. In our sexual development. And I really want to be different. I am proud to be a mother; I don't want to have a beard. How do we have to be the same? Under the law. I am not a feminist. ” On gender violence: "You cannot put a person in the dungeon just because the woman has said she has been assaulted."
In his opinion, "Vox reflects the ideology of a traditional person who has always talked about these issues at the table." On education, for example: “It can't be that they sell us the movie as it isn't. Normal is heterosexuality, isn't it? The man and the woman. And don't give me a law that tells me everything goes. We must educate with respect, with the consent of the parents in the schools. In my house I am giving some moral and religious norms so that now another one comes and says: 'No, it is not that ”.
On that trip to Vistalegre, Cloti and Oti went out in the digital press. In the picture they smile behind a flag that displays the head of a wolf. The beast is wearing a spiked collar, the colors of Spain on her face and in her green eyes it reads "Vox". Behind the animal there is a cross in a cross, that of Burgundy, emblem of the Spanish thirds. The teaching of the wolf is also at the door of a Roquetas bar, facing the beach. And inside the premises the flag coexists with that of the Legion. Party supporters usually meet here and it is full of Vox paraphernalia. There are bracelets of "Spain Alive", keychains of Abascal; The pin costs 2.50 euros.
“For a long time I didn't know who to vote for. I had no identity ”
Otilia Peña
Employee in hospitality. 51 years. Roquetas de Mar (Almería)She is an affiliate and voter of Vox. "That feeling has called me," he explains. "Somebody tell me again that my origins and traditions are a pride."
Otilia Peña, Oti, 51, is the one who has guided us to this place. He works in the department of "reservations and revenue" in a hotel in the area. While sipping a cocacola, he explains about the flag: “A wolf represents power. They are always together, united, strongly. ” He adds on Vox: “For a long time I didn't know who to vote for. He had no identity. You said 'I am Spanish' and people looked at you badly in the street. That feeling has called me: someone telling me again that my origin and my traditions are a pride. ” He voted to the match in the Andalusians. The next day he joined. “Vox is trying to cross off ultra party for defending a nation, unity. This term has been coined because there is fear of the number of people who were silent. ”
The owner of the premises, retired military, emerges from his silence and adds something about the flag: it was he who designed it. The wolf, he says, represents the Iberian fauna. The black background symbolizes war to death. Tears are the flags of Spain. That is to say: this wolf cries Spain. And in the place, if one looks closely, another type of paraphernalia is emerging: a preconstitutional flag, Franco's key rings. On the dictator, the owner says: “As head of state, if he had left 20 years before, better for everyone. I like him as general of armies. But without nostalgia. What you cannot do is a law so that the past disappears. ” Oti adds: "History is part of us." The owner concludes: "Above all, not to repeat it."
7 Agricultural entrepreneurs
From the top impresses the brightness of the orchard of Europe, a milky spot on the shores of the Mediterranean. Inside, the plastic sea of El Ejido (Almería) becomes a maze of roads. The asphalt tongue borders the coast and at the bottom of the ravine is Almerimar, an urbanization with a nautical port to which agricultural entrepreneurs have moved; there are hardly any foreigners, the rent is the highest in the municipality and the vote for Vox is around 40%. Turning to the left, the roads narrow, proliferate advertisements that offer "whitening" (of plastics) and a flag of the dictatorship rises over the orchards in front of a graffiti: "Pedro Sánchez cabrón. Franco is not the problem. The problem is you. ”
Juan Plaza, the owner of the flag, is also from a small greenhouse where clusters of cherry tomatoes hang and work a handful of Moroccans. Voter "of lifelong lefts", explains that he has changed to Vox because it reflects what "most people think, even if he is not able to say it." He is 62 years old; complains hoarsely: “Making a greenhouse today costs you more than 300,000 euros. How do you amortize it? How is it possible to sell the tomato at 60 cents a kilo and the final price is 6 euros? Go one burned alive. 90% of the field is trapped. ” He says he has a hard time understanding the world around him. These are the days when the Climate Summit is held in Madrid, Greta Thunberg has just crossed the Atlantic. "You see the girl is of climate change," he says. “How will it go? On donkey? Will you go to Madrid in a colt? There are things that are better not to talk about because you get mad. ”
Francisco Fernández, 51, another agricultural entrepreneur (and zahorí), links the vote to Vox with "stress and uncertainty" in the sector. He cites the small margin, relocation, competition from Morocco, and that "the big ones are getting bigger". "When financial institutions find out that a medium-sized farmer is on a tightrope, they get in touch with the big ones to absorb that farm." That's why he voted for Vox. That's why Trump likes it: “The media treats him crazy, but for me it isn't. I consider him as a parent for whom his children come first. ”
When asked about the shanty towns where some migrants live, he replies: “They prefer to be there than pay rent. Why? Because they don't pay anything for shanty towns. They save everything for the pot and send money to their country. Man, leave something here, generate wealth at least. ” Among the first measures of the City Council of El Ejido, where it governs a coalition of Vox and PP since June 2019, was the demolition of these settlements. One of them is a little beyond the Francoist flag. Cubic houses made of plastic waste, pallets and pvc pipes are built on an arid bald spot. A Moroccan with a purulent scab on her arm shows her house and repeats: "I don't work, I don't eat food." A rickety cat crosses a puddle in which urine and garbage and pesticides are mixed. Sometimes a mild aroma of tomatoes comes to the nose.
8 Autonomous
It dawns in the outskirts of Madrid and you see crops and openings and industrial buildings on the edge of urbanizations. Between nodes of highways a macrodiscoteca is promoted where to continue on Sunday mornings. In this area of the south of the capital, which is neither country nor city, neither Madrid nor Toledo, where young and old families who still wear corduroy coexist, there is hardly a municipality in which Vox drops below 25%. In many it exceeds 30%.
"Everything we pay for taxes, where the hell is it going?"
Rafael Alvarez
Delivery delivery of diesel. 38 years. Moral of Enmedio (Madrid)He believes that the high percentage of voting in the southern belt of Madrid has a common denominator: "We are very burned." Share the Vox proposals at 95% and believe it was time to "try a change that renews and straightens everything."
Rafael Álvarez, 38, moves daily through the region aboard his tanker. He is a deliveryman of diesel. Autonomous. Married with two children. He lives in Moraleja de Enmedio, where Vox was the first force on 10-N. We are at the headquarters of the family business, the MoraFuel Low Cost gas station, with two 24-hour pumps, and a garage where the trucks are stored. On the roof, the flag of Spain. He has a thick beard and is wearing a anorak. "You say you have voted for Vox and it looks like you have a picture of Hitler in your wallet." In his opinion, this vote goes beyond ideologies. It is a punishment for "political dinosaurs." A commitment to “something new, that gives a change, that tries to remove and straighten everything, because this is getting worse and worse”. He adds: "It seems that Vox is going to look more for us." It refers to "people on foot", "to those who work", to customers in the area. “We are all the same. Each time with less money, but we work more and more. You do not arrive at the end of the month. Everything that is paid for taxes, where the hell is it going? To the autonomies? A subsidies to people who then do not produce? The money does not look like you. We are very burned. If the more I work, the more taxes I pay, how do I do it? How can I live better?
Following road junctions south of Madrid, you reach Numancia de la Sagra (Toledo), where a polygon is deployed at the edge of the highway. In one of the ships, Salvador Sánchez puts on the harness and climbs the crane and rises to continue with his work: he is adapting the premises to the safety regulations. It is also from Moraleja de Enmedio. You saw gray monkey. Work shoe It has chiseled dark circles. The 43-year-old, married and with two children, speaks of a vote of punishment for the "corrupt." To remove subsidies to parties - "when I start a business, nobody helps me" -. And the message that has penetrated the area: “Most of us are working people and freelancers. They are costing us pointless taxes, because we really are the ones who raise the country. ”
When talking about gender violence, the debate is derived to criminal matters. Claim life imprisonment. “But nothing about living dumb soup; shackles and fix roads. ” He continues: “The rapist who leaves permission and recidivizes, that uncle does not even deserve to be in jail. You have to take it out of the way. It is a hindrance to society. ”
"Do you support the death penalty?"
-Of course yes.
Before continuing with the drill, he concludes: “We live in a society where there is no fear of doing evil. And since there is no fear, we do what we want. The criminals are at ease. There is no justice. There is no law. On the contrary, they are protected. ”
Not far from there, in the immense Xanadú shopping center, in Arroyomolinos, south of Madrid, a man arrives down the marble aisle pushing a baby carriage. He stops in front of a shop window where three flags of Spain stand out: one from the Paratrooper Brigade (with the Burgundy cross), another from the Legion and one from the Civil Guard. Knives, sabers, spears, gas masks and all kinds of war objects are also exposed. The guy forms a curious picture with the cart and bringing the nose closer to the glass to look at the price of a machete. It has annoyed him to recognize him, "for the topic", but he has turned out to be a Vox voter. A national police officer; He spent a decade at the IPU (riot control). “The country lives a riot. The balance has been broken.There are times that you have to put some order, ”argues his vote.
Arroyomolinos was nothing more than an old tower, several streets and a few hundred people in the eighties. In 2010 they reached 16,000 inhabitants. Today they add more than 30,000. It is, according to its City Council, “the youngest city in Spain”. The average age is around 31 years; and in the locality, the rows of homogeneous houses extend as far as the eye can see. Many children of the workers of Móstoles, Alcorcón and Fuenlabrada moved to the municipality. And in the November elections Vox was the first force with 27%. "I think we are going straight to a civil conflict, as in 36", continues the police, resident of the municipality. And then he greets a friend who is tall as a tower and has been dropped by Xanadu. He is a partner, from the IPU; He has just returned from Girona, where he was assigned during the riots in Catalonia. He talks about kids throwing stones, running out and crying when you catch them. The baby carriage concludes: “People are cushioned. Me included. I don't think we live better than our parents. ” A little train loaded with children passes by.
9 The richest 1%
The light awakens brief flashes in the braces of his mouth when he smiles. He says: "Santi to me is ... I'm a number one fan ." Pilar de la Puerta is 18 years old. He studied Business Administration and Business Digital Economy at the University of Villanueva, a private center of “deep Christian roots”. The exams ended yesterday. Born and raised in Seville, daughter of a bullfighter, lives for five years in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), the municipality with the highest per capita income in Spain. He receives at his uncles' house, in La Finca, an area known for housing soccer mansions. And perhaps one of the most conservative areas in Spain: in this census section the PP wins (56%) followed by Vox (29%) and Cs (10%). They add 95%. The section belongs to the richest 1% of Spain.
From the Door you saw leather sucks. Skirt with prints. Boots. He has studied at an Opus school and these days on vacation he plans to go to a farm of his grandparents, where he likes to ride a horse. By age, he has only voted once in his life. I do not doubt. He qualifies his family as "very right." PP voters. Until Vox arrived: “They are country people, traditional, from no to abortion, like my family,” he says. “We felt super reflected. They represent our values. ”
“I love going to the rallies and shouting: 'I am Spanish, I am from Vox!”
Pillar of the Door
University 18 years. Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid)He studied Business Administration and Business Digital Economy at the University of Villanueva. He voted for the first time in the general elections of November 10. He opted for Vox.
—What are those values?
"Family, God, country."
Catalonia, for her, is key: "It is the only party that says it will not separate." He “loves” Santiago Abascal because, although he seems “a bit of a gross uncle,” he has “super-clear ideas”. "It conveys a lot of security and confidence, that peace of mind that we are going to fight it and we are going to get it, Spaniards." Rocío Monasterio also likes it: "She is very sweet and I see her as a mother, helping everyone with that smile." He likes Vox in general: “You see humble, honest, family people, who educate their children in values, in the Christian religion, they see good people. You know? Good people. "
She has attended numerous acts and demonstrations. “To those of Columbus, always. I love to go and shout: 'I am Spanish, I am from Vox!' And we go all my friends with the flags to the rallies. I have seen, in plan, Santi there to a metrito ”. More than voting for Vox, it feels "part" of Vox. “It defines me. I go and give it my all. It's like a concert. " And he believes that part of the success has to do with his presence on social networks: “He has the super-updated Instagram account. We learned everything because in the end it is our day to day. Meeting here, meeting there. And we all go. ”
There is another event that the old right does not usually miss: the New Future Rake. The engine starts today and El Chiringuito sounds while a group of well-groomed ladies walks among stalls that offer lamps, cutlery, glassware. In the corner of the bar where they serve blinis, “the best snack of the rake”, is Ana, 73, a widow, Madrid and Vox voter. He practiced law, helped in the family advertising business and today is mainly dedicated to "social works." He voted for the PP since the game was born until his disenchantment with Rajoy - he calls it "complexines" -. Popular people still like ideas, "but they don't decide to defend them." It refers to “abortion by abortion”, to historical memory, to 155 “light” applied in Catalonia. "Vox is a reaction to how Spain is," he says. “There is tension, although less than 23-F. Many are afraid; those of the left and those of the right ”. A friend of his, also a Vox voter, contributes something else: Abascal, says nailing his feline eyes, has "a pair of balls."
Weeks later, Ana receives us in her apartment, in the Salamanca district. The portal also corresponds to a census section where the richest 1% lives and there the sum of the rights rubs 80% of the vote. Mauricio, his "service person" opens the door. She sits on the sofa next to a pennant in Spain and confesses that she lives in fear of "a shot" escaping or that "someone comes up with the tremendous idea of killing a politician." Despite the hard content, the talk is nice. He says that, for her, the extreme right would be Christ the King "in his time," that is, "people not only with ideas of the right, but semiterrorists." He adds: "The extreme left, unfortunately, is beginning to enter the Government." Protest for whatsapps that are sent "like fired rockets", by one and the other, often with false data. On a bedside table, he still maintains the signed photo of José María Aznar and Ana Botella, with whom he befriends. But in its circles Vox has entered as a cyclone: "Many friends have changed their vote." Even his service, Mauricio, is a supporter of Vox, he says. Although he could not vote on 10-N, he adds. Because he is Colombian.
"There is no right to protect only women and not men"
A bar scene
Roquetas de Mar (Almería)We attended a debate among the clients of a Roquetas de Mar bar by asking them about the Vox boom.
Vox wick
Political disaffection, the feeling of abandonment and the identity issue are key to the rise of the far-right party in Spain.When Vox was born, his voter was already there, although he didn't know it yet. It was December 2013 and at that time a third of Spaniards believed, according to the CIS, that the State of autonomy had to be reversed or recentralized. Unemployment, corruption and politicians were, in this order, their main concerns. More than 50% agreed with the statement: "Immigrants take their jobs from the Spaniards" (2014 data). 23% professed "little or no sympathy" to feminist movements and 28% had "little or no" sympathy to gay and lesbian organizations (2010 survey); 47% saw in the Comprehensive Law on Gender Violence an effective “little or nothing” instrument; and 60% were "very or quite agree" with the idea that some women file false allegations "to obtain economic benefits and harm their partners" (in 2012). The country was around 4.7 million unemployed; the traditional right, in the Government, frayed between trials; fiscal pressure had increased since the crisis and more than 180,000 businesses had been destroyed; more than 80% considered the political and economic situation as "bad or very bad". And there was also a gap: when citizens were asked if they were left or right, 29% answered "I don't know" or "I don't answer." The demand existed. The offer was missing. Vox was registered in 2013. A year later he took the reins Santiago Abascal. In his first two general elections, in 2015 and 2016, he scored around 50,000 votes. In the third, in April 2019, it exceeded 2.6 million; in the latter, those of 10-N, 3.6 million.
EL PAÍS engineer and analyst Kiko Llaneras, who has dived in data, statistics and surveys on Vox in recent times, asks for “caution” in radiographs because he believes that the voters of each party are a world. But he adds that at least three typologies marked within Vox can be distinguished. The first is called by the "ideological or identity voter." “People who define themselves as rights, who believe that society defines them as such, and who feel that Vox is the party that represents theirs. It exists in Madrid and in other big cities, like Seville. ” For them, the separatist conflict in Catalonia and national unity have been key, although both have been a catalyst for the vote for all types of people. The second profile, which emerges on the Andalusian coast and the Levant, would include "people who live in relatively poor areas of Spain where there is a high presence of immigration and a lot of work in the countryside." Huelva, Almería and Murcia, the first and only autonomy in which Vox has been imposed on generals to date, are a clear example. The third profile, Llaneras concludes, is perhaps the most difficult to define, and probably the most interesting to investigate for its resemblance to yellow vests in France; with Brexit voters in the United Kingdom; with Trump's fans in the United States. A sort of losers of the Great Recession, mostly men between 35 and 50 years old - the group in which Vox is most successful - with a reasonable level of education and relatively high incomes. “People who at the time of reaching the labor market and starting a family found one of the biggest crises that this country has experienced. That he probably had different expectations about what his life was going to be. ” This profile is perceived with intensity around the big cities and could explain the strength of Vox in the south of Madrid: dormitory locations where the capital was widened in the times of the bubble.
The economist Thomas Piketty explains in his recent essay Capital and ideology (Deusto) that the "increased feeling of abandonment of the middle and popular classes" and "attitudes of identity withdrawal" are directly related to the increase in inequality in the West since the 1980s. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump with his proposals of walls and homeland, he argues, are phenomena that drink in part of this discontent. How intense is this relationship between economics and identity populism is perhaps one of today's great questions.
"Revenge of forgotten places," says Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, who has analyzed countless electoral districts in Europe and the US in search of an explanation of populism. “There are many territories that receive less and less investment, less services, that have grown much less than average, have lost jobs, productivity, that have much less future and for which no solutions have been offered. These are the places that today are opposing, which are deciding: 'The system no longer benefits us'. They have been in decline for a long time and with the wick of the crisis they have rebelled and have chosen to vote to the extremes and, above all, to the extreme right, to the anti-system parties of the populist court ”. With that vote, Rodríguez-Pose adds, they are saying: "If I don't have a future, you won't have it either."
In his opinion, "populism" in Europe proposes a "trinity" with which it attracts these places that do not matter: "An anti-satellite speech, an anti-immigrant speech and an anti-European speech." The three vectors generate a binary thought: the idea of “we face them”, easy to understand, instead of addressing the real challenges posed by globalization, migration, platform economies, job insecurity, technology ... "We are leaving very complex problems that require a high level of coordination in the hands of prophets who sell very simple solutions." And alert that this widespread discontent and especially "with politics and democracy" is "the perfect cocktail for messianic leaders to take advantage, come to power and transform society."
Data against the bulos
From its origin, Vox disseminates numerous statements that are not supported by proven facts and facts. Next, some example.
1. Immigration.
No migrant receives money for arriving in Spain. They do receive basic humanitarian care, regulated in Royal Decree 441/2007. Nor do they opt for aid before a Spaniard. These are granted by objective criteria based on income and degree of vulnerability, regardless of origin. Any person with legal residence can opt for Social Security benefits, according to the Aliens Law and following the principle of non-discrimination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Spain assumes in the Constitution.
2. Security
Spain was in 2017 the third safest country in Europe, according to Eurostat. Between 2008 and 2018 the crime rate has been reduced from 51.9 to 44.1 criminal offenses per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the Ministry of Interior. In that period the percentage of foreigners in Spain has gone from 11.3% to 10.1%, according to the INE.
3. Climate change.
There is scientific consensus on the anthropogenic cause of global warming. The most reliable studies are prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, a scientific body sponsored by the UN.
4. Gender violence.
The Istanbul Convention, ratified by Spain, the UN and Spanish legislation recognize the existence of a specific violence against women, and therefore different from domestic violence. Convictions for false complaints in cases of gender-based violence are around 0.01% of the total, according to the State Attorney General's Office. According to the CGPJ, 70% of the sentences on gender violence ended in conviction in 2018; 75% of those convicted of sexual crimes in 2017 were Spanish.