The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and the candidate of the ultra party, Juan García-Gallardo, at an electoral act in Burgos, on February 5. Santi Otero (EFE)
"If Spaniards are aware of the seriousness of the situation and are willing to compromise, the government may fall due to social mobilizations."
This phrase was pronounced by Santiago Abascal in the summer of 2020 and responded, more than a forecast, to a purpose.
After the total paralysis of the economy caused by the confinement to deal with covid-19, a barrage of closures and layoffs was expected in the autumn.
Abascal activated his motion of censure so that the parliamentary debate coincided with the wave of protests.
But the ERTE and the announcement of multimillion-dollar European aid cushioned the blow and the social explosion never occurred.
The war in Ukraine has provided a new opportunity for Vox.
The escalation in the price of energy that has been taking place in recent months has run amok with doubts about the supply of Russian gas and the inflationary spiral has spread to almost all products.
The solution that Vox proposes to fix this situation is not to intervene in the price of electricity or subsidize those who cannot pay it, but the same one that it proposed a year and a half ago, in the midst of a pandemic: to bring down the Government.
“We have to kick them out!”
It is the motto of the concentrations that, before all the City Councils of Spain, Vox has convened for the 19th. On the posters, a not particularly graceful image of the faces of Pedro Sánchez and some of his ministers.
Not necessarily those most closely related to the matter, such as Vice President Teresa Ribera,
"With electricity, gasoline and basic supplies fired, the patience of the Spanish has come to an end," argues Abascal to call the demonstrations of the arm of Solidarity, the union led by a businessman and regional deputy of his party.
Vox's alternative to cheaper electricity is "energy sovereignty";
that is to say, committing to nuclear energy —prolonging the life of nuclear power beyond 40 years— and reopening coal-fired power plants, despite thus aggravating the greenhouse effect.
At a time when Vox has just imposed on the PP its entry into the Junta de Castilla y León, Abascal wants to show muscle and show that, on the street, he is the leader of the opposition.
The March 19 demonstration will also have a clear anti-feminist bias.
The “expendable parent's day” will be celebrated, as Disenso —the foundation chaired by Abascal— has renamed Father's Day;
and expressly opposes the "shameful and dramatic immorality" that, in his opinion, involves allocating 20,319 million in the next three years "for feminist policies."
In reality, that figure, published by the Ministry of Equality on March 8, does not correspond to any new disbursement, but to the sum of the budget items that have an impact on the promotion of women.
The mobilization of 19-M will not be the only one in which Abascal is.
The next day he plans to attend what is intended to be the great demonstration of the rural world against the Government.
The march was called by associations of hunters against the animal welfare law and the reform of the Penal Code that increases the penalties for those who mistreat a vertebrate to death, but numerous agrarian organizations have joined it.
The organizers also want to remove the wolf from the list of protected species or open the national parks to hunting.
Abascal has always pampered hunters and one of his deputies, Ángel López Maraver, was president of the Spanish Hunting Federation.
The difference is that now Vox is going to sit in a regional government and will have a budget to meet some of those claims.
The program agreed between PP and Vox for Castilla y León is far from doing so.
It does not provide any aid to families, companies or the self-employed to compensate for the high price of energy.
It promises a Rural Development and Competitiveness Law, but does not advance its content, and limits itself to "urging the Government to recover the balance between livestock and wolf protection."
Although he advocates "significantly reducing superfluous spending", not eliminating it, he fails to fulfill Vox's first promise: reduce the number of ministries to nine.
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