The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, poses for a photo in the Senate of Mexico with PAN politicians.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador received good news this Thursday. A group of senators from the National Action Party (PAN), the main opposition party, and a couple from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had met in a Senate room with one of the most controversial figures in Spanish politics, the far-right Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, to sign a letter "against communism." And they took a photo that will go down in history. Abascal and his reactionary agenda for the "Iberosphere" - his own reference for Latin America - have been an unexpected missile for an already fragmented opposition. The barrage of criticism has accelerated the official position of the parties, which have run to distance themselves: "No political agreement was signed," said the PAN.The PRI has even denied that any of its members participated.
Internal storm in the PRI and the PAN for the support of their senators to the Spanish extreme right-wing Santiago Abascal
Senators from PAN and PRI support far-right Santiago Abascal in his crusade against communism
On the photo that has spread like wildfire this Friday on social networks and in any political group, the words of the Vox leader from just a few weeks ago flew over. For the 500-year anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlan, Abascal launched a provocation to the other side of the Atlantic: “Spain managed to free millions of people from the bloodthirsty and terror regime of the Aztecs. Proud of our History, ”he tweeted on August 13 to the outrage of millions of Mexicans. Since that day, the leader of the Spanish extreme right, who defends his rejection of illegal immigration in Europe, women's rights - such as abortion - or a life free of violence for them, in addition to reviving the spirit of Francoism, has He also became a controversial character in Mexican politics.And the photo of the group of PAN senators with him wrapping up the so-called Madrid Charter this Thursday has catapulted him into the national debate.
Is the PAN following the Spanish ultra-rightist trail? It has been one of the main questions raised after the image. The party has stated this Friday that the event took place on an “individual basis” among those present, but insists on not institutionally linking their party, since they affirm: “In Spain our institutional partner is the Popular Party, we are both part of the International Center Democrat (IDC). The meeting held by some PAN senators with representatives of another party was in a personal capacity, in use of their freedom ”.
With the Madrid Charter signed by some PAN senators this Thursday, Vox seeks to attract followers to become a response to the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, a coalition of parties founded in 1990 by Fidel Castro and Lula da Silva that According to Abascal's party, "it has been decisive for the rise of the extreme left in Latin America." "A part of the region is kidnapped by communist-inspired totalitarian regimes, supported by drug trafficking and third countries," read the first lines of the document. And one of its main objectives is "to stop the advance of communism" and other more ambiguous concepts such as: the defense of the rule of law, "the rule of law, the separation of powers, freedom of expression and private property".
For Soledad Loaeza, a professor at the Center for International Studies of the Colegio de México and author of two books on the PAN, this Thursday's meeting is a sign of the fragmentation that exists within the main opposition group. “Acción Nacional has its radical wings and has always had them. One of the most radical is that of Hispanism, which is a minority, but in this case we are facing a situation that reveals more than anything the lack of national leadership and the confusion that the party has been in for many years ”.
Some members of the party, such as Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, have also repudiated the agreement.
"It was a mistake that some PAN senators signed the Madrid Charter with Santiago Abascal, a despicable character," he stated in a radio interview with journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva.
"Me with Vox or to the corner," the senator tweeted.
Loaeza explains that in Mexico "we have not really had a well-organized right-wing party."
“In its history there have been critical situations that led it to a position of strength, but the PRI [which ruled Mexico without interruption until 2000] always had the ability to disperse them.
And that made the oppositions of the right and left always a minority.
Now that there is no opposition, that it has collapsed, these radical groups appear ”, adds the professor.
López Obrador's insistent speech against the conservatives in each daily public appearance has generated a climate of polarization that can resurrect extreme positions at a time of renewal of an opposition touched after the failure at the polls against López Obrador in 2018. “It can be done create a far right as a result of the president's provocations and also of social fear, ”warns Loaeza. “What could happen is that these groups within the PAN saw external support and internal strengthening in a radicalization to the right. That there is a fierce right-wing potential, yes. But they have never managed to coagulate and we don't know if they will because of a lack of leadership. They have not put into practice their wildest attitudes,but if they are highly persecuted and threatened, they can become something comparable to the Argentine or Chilean right. We have not had that experience ”, adds the teacher.
Internal sources of the PAN indicate to this newspaper that Thursday's meeting was a quick and "somewhat informal" act. A member of the party who was present - who prefers not to give his name because they have been prohibited from making further statements on the matter - says that “it was very brief, the text of the Madrid Charter was read and the senators who were there signed it. It was clearly stated that it was a plural document of all political tendencies and that this did not imply any further link with the party ”. "The content of the letter is assumed, it does not mean that there is a political alliance with Vox," he insisted.
"I believe that in some political circles there may be a misinterpretation of what happened," acknowledges one of the attendees.
"Although the content of the letter is quite acceptable, in defense of democracy, freedoms, private property ... We have lacked a better explanation that what is shared is the content of the letter and not the involvement of the party", adds.
Despite the insistence of the PAN to distance itself from Vox, many of the members of his party have described the meeting with Abascal as one of the biggest mistakes of the current opposition.
“It was a stupid decision.
They did a great favor to López Obrador, ”says Loaeza.
And about his objective of stopping communism: "I am very ashamed, because what it denotes is a supine ignorance", adds the teacher.
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