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Miguel González: "Ortega Smith asked to sleep in Franco's room"

2022-04-20T22:38:20.587Z


The journalist analyzes in 'Vox SA' the business of Spanish patriotism and the strategy of the party from its birth until today


Miguel González (Málaga, 62 years old) has been at EL PAÍS for more than three decades, a newspaper in which he uncovered the irregularities in the identification of the victims of the Yak-42 or the torture of Iraqi prisoners by the Spanish military in 2004. He is one of many journalists that Santiago Abascal's party has vetoed, preventing him from attending their rallies and press conferences.

In

VOX SA, The business of Spanish patriotism

(Peninsula) analyzes the strategy of political formation from its birth until today, looking more at the data than at the statements, more at what they do than what they say.

Ask.

He dedicates the book to the more than 3.6 million Spaniards who voted for Vox in the last general elections.

Why?

Response.

Every time someone criticizes the leaders of Vox, they hide behind the fact that they are offending their voters.

It is a technique typical of nationalism;

When Pujol had his first problems with the law, he wrapped himself in the

senyera

and said that he was attacking Catalonia.

I have wanted to make it clear from the beginning that voters are not responsible for what Vox does with their votes.

P.

Vidal-Quadras maintains that if Esperanza Aguirre had presented herself in 2008 to succeed Mariano Rajoy, today Vox would not exist.

What makes a party created in December 2013 hit the ball in the Andalusians of 2018 and has not stopped growing since then?

Vox was a boat adrift until the wave of the

procés arrived

R.

Vox was created with one goal: to get a seat for Vidal-Quadras in the 2014 European elections. It did not succeed.

For years it has been a beach bar whose president, Santiago Abascal, earns a monthly gross salary of 6,137.70 euros, although he has no institutional presence.

It is a boat adrift until the wave of the

procés

arrives and he gets on it.

Catholic fundamentalism is passing its bill to Abascal

P.

How much do you think there is of ideology and how much of opportunism in the birth of Vox?

R.

The founders of Vox disagree with Rajoy's policies: the tax increase, the reversal of the abortion law... But that initial Vox is not that of Abascal, it is a kind of authentic PP.

If Vidal-Quadras had taken his seat in Strasbourg he would have sat with the popular Europeans, not with Le Pen.

When Abascal stays with a party that threatens ruin, he seeks the support of fundamentalist Catholic

lobbies

such as Hazte Oír, who are now passing the bill on him and demanding that he end the laws of gender violence or LGTBI in the autonomies where he has power.

P.

And among your voters, what percentage of the support do you think is due to your ideas and what percentage to anger with the traditional parties?

R.

Abascal repeats it: "You don't have to agree with everything I say, it's enough that you share the main thing."

Vox manages to bring together very diverse groups: men alarmed by the advance of feminism, conservative Catholics scandalized by the breaking of gender molds, ranchers harmed by the protection of the wolf, manual workers excluded from the digital revolution... and then there is a Spanish nationalism that he was lethargic and woke up with the

procés

.

The Catalan independence movement produced sentimental tears and not only in Catalonia.

The icing on the cake are the remains of the usual Spanish extreme right, which Vox engulfs.

P.

Vox declares war on what it calls political bars, but it was born just when Abascal lost his job as director of the Foundation for the Patronage of the Community of Madrid, a position with hardly any commitments for which he charged more than 82,000 euros.

What other contradictions have they fallen into?

R.

In many.

Vox says that all beach bars must be closed, but he has not stopped creating them.

He was born from a foundation, Denaes [Defense of the Spanish Nation], but he has created another, Disenso, because the previous one did not serve him to collect the aid received by party foundations.

He enters the Autonomous Government of Castilla y León proclaiming that it is necessary to end the autonomies;

He says that political spending must be reduced, but he only cuts that of the regional Parliament, which must control the government in which they sit.

Until now, he has not given up a single euro of the public subsidies that correspond to them and that already account for more than 60% of their income.

They presume to be the Spain that gets up early, but their last congress is held at 11 a.m. on a Friday,

Q.

Why?

R.

Because of the

hooliganization

of politics.

Everything your team does is fine with you, even if they play poorly and kick.

And you will never admit that the other is right.

They all do it, but Vox takes it to the extreme.

If one mentions Gernika, they reply with Paracuellos, as happened to the president of Ukraine.

It seems that they take for granted when remembering Gernika, although it is a universal symbol that should unite all Spaniards, because the aggressors were Nazis and the victims were Basque civilians, like Abascal.

Vox feeds fear and then offers security, like alarm companies

Q.

You say: "Vox offers nostalgia as a potion."

How far back does she go?

R.

We live in a time of uncertainty, pandemics, precarious jobs, wars, and generations without hope for a better future.

Vox and the entire European far-right feed those fears, abroad, to those who are different... and then offer security, like the companies that sell alarms.

What gives security?

The usual: family, country and religion.

The traditional institutions where one feels protected against a hostile world.

And Vox does not believe that sovereignty resides in the Spanish people, but in the Spanish Nation.

And the Spanish Nation, for them, is not only made up of living Spaniards, but also of the dead and those yet to be born.

The living can express themselves through voting, but neither the dead nor the unborn can vote, so they assume their representation.

And we living Spaniards will always be in a minority compared to the dead and the unborn.

That idea is deeply undemocratic and can justify a civil war.

Buxadé [political vice president of Vox] says: "If the democratic party regime turns against Spain, the Nation has every right and duty to defend itself."

Abascal warns: "If the majority of Spaniards today wanted to commit suicide in Spain, we should prevent it."

How?

By any means, shot if necessary.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

That idea is deeply undemocratic and can justify a civil war.

Buxadé [political vice president of Vox] says: "If the democratic party regime turns against Spain, the Nation has every right and duty to defend itself."

Abascal warns: "If the majority of Spaniards today wanted to commit suicide in Spain, we should prevent it."

How?

By any means, shot if necessary.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

That idea is deeply undemocratic and can justify a civil war.

Buxadé [political vice president of Vox] says: "If the democratic party regime turns against Spain, the Nation has every right and duty to defend itself."

Abascal warns: "If the majority of Spaniards today wanted to commit suicide in Spain, we should prevent it."

How?

By any means, shot if necessary.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

"If the democratic regime of parties turns against Spain, the Nation has every right and duty to defend itself."

Abascal warns: "If the majority of Spaniards today wanted to commit suicide in Spain, we should prevent it."

How?

By any means, shot if necessary.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

"If the democratic regime of parties turns against Spain, the Nation has every right and duty to defend itself."

Abascal warns: "If the majority of Spaniards today wanted to commit suicide in Spain, we should prevent it."

How?

By any means, shot if necessary.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

What is suicide to Spain?

It is supposed to give Catalonia independence, but it could also be to give the State a confederal structure or simply a federal one.

From the moment you become the interpreter of the Spanish Nation, you can decide what threatens it and what does not.

P.

You maintain that they are not fascists, but neo-Francoists.

R.

In Vox there are Falangists.

Buxadé was a Falange candidate twice and never denied it, although he did deny having been a member of the PP.

Javier Ortega Smith was in the Falange when he was 18 years old and in October 2019 he asked to sleep in room number 3 of the Madrid Hotel in Las Palmas, in the bed where Franco spent his last night before starting the Civil War that would devastate Spain.

The great catastrophes of the last century have been caused by three currents of thought that coincide in putting their respective ideological conceptions above people's lives (communism, jihadism and ultranationalism) and Vox belongs to one of them, but to describe it as fascist is an anachronism.

P.

“We have gone from one extreme to another: from beating homosexuals to now those groups imposing their law” (Iván Espinosa de los Monteros);

“It is possible that there are citizens who want their politicians to smell like

Nenuco

, but others want more testosterone” (Santiago Abascal).

Is there a strategy behind such explosive statements or are they mere recklessness?

They deny being homophobic, but they deny homosexuals what is most valuable to them: to form a family

P.

Vox assures that it has nothing against homosexuals, but against the movement that claims their rights, which it calls a

lobby

gay.

They want to close the Pride Day in the Casa de Campo, claiming that it dirty the center of Madrid, but it would not occur to them to take the Sanfermines to the outskirts of Pamplona.

Vox doesn't care that you're gay, but inside your house.

Invisible.

And without the right to marry or adopt children, because there is only the "natural family", made up of a man and a woman, and the rest is unnatural.

Here Catholic fundamentalism is allied with a nationalism that needs Spanish women to have children for the Homeland.

The more, the better.

"I'm not worried that Europeans don't procreate, I'm worried that Spaniards don't," says Abascal.

His obsession is to fight against the “demographic winter”.

And in that fight, gays and women who decide to have a different priority in life than having children get in the way.

So,

P.

You explain in the book that the management of the networks, for which they had the advice of Steve Bannon, Trump's strategist, is key to the rise of the party, although recent changes in the platforms have harmed them.

R.

The networks allow them to connect with the public without intermediaries.

They copy the strategy of the

Alt Right

, the American alternative right of Donald Trump.

They open a gap in a field that until then dominated Podemos.

The emergence of Vox coincides with a change in 2018 in the design of the Facebook algorithm by which the opinions contrary to a publication score four times more than the favorable ones, promoting the most extremist speeches.

Bannon, Trump's 2016 campaign strategist, offers his help.

But then there are some changes in social networks that harm them.

WhatsApp limits the number of forwards of a message to stop the spread of false news about the coronavirus.

And Twitter has repeatedly blocked the party's official account for messages that promote hate.

The networks have become a less inclined territory and that is why they are now trying to generate their own constellation of related media.

P.

The media is often accused of having contributed to the rise of Vox by serving as a loudspeaker for its ideas.

Does it make sense to try to hide what the third force in Parliament thinks?

R.

That debate is as old as the press.

In his time, for example, it was debated whether or not to report terrorist attacks.

But information continued and terrorism was defeated precisely by a well-informed society.

I believe that the best antidote is always information.

You have to report because if you leave that gap, it ends up being filled by propaganda or lies.

Another thing is that you report a lot of the things that Vox says and very little of what he does, which are more revealing.

P.

The other great debate around the relationship with Vox is that of the cordon sanitaire.

In France, the equivalent of the PP supports Macron against Le Pen.

Are these types of measures useful or can they be counterproductive, turning them into martyrs?

R.

Vox does not believe in democracy nor, consequently, in the Constitution.

But the Constitution is not the catechism.

You don't have to believe in it, but abide by it.

As long as it follows the law, it must be a legal party.

Although they want to outlaw half of the parties, from the nationalists to Podemos, they should not be outlawed.

And, of course, they have every right to hold rallies and public events without anyone harassing or attacking them.

The word can only be defeated with the word.

P.

You assure that it is not a racist party because it does not discriminate based on skin color, but rather on culture or religion.

They say, for example: "Latinos have a sense of sin similar to that of the Spanish."

R.

Vox has a mulatto leader, Ignacio Garriga.

And he has not criticized the reception of refugees from Ukraine.

He alleges that they are fleeing a war, while those who arrive in the Canary Islands by boat or jump the fences in Ceuta and Melilla are an "invasion" of economic immigrants.

However, Abascal praised the Hungarian Orbán for refusing to take in 1,294 Syrian refugees in 2015 who were also fleeing a war.

The difference is that the Ukrainians are Christians and the Syrians are Muslims.

Vox's nationalism is national-Catholicism or, to be precise, national-integrism because he criticizes Pope Francis for calling for irregular immigrants to be treated humanely.

Vox cannot base the identity of Spain on race and does so on religion.

For Abascal, Christianity is "the backbone of Spain" and Islam is "the anti-Spain."

Q.

You say that Vox is more like a company than a political party.

How has Abascal shielded himself at the head of that Board of Directors?

R.

Vox works like a company.

In 2019, it abolished the primaries to elect public positions and has now eliminated elections to provincial committees.

Their internal positions are not chosen by the bases, but designated from Madrid, as if they were commercial representatives.

Abascal himself has not been voted for by the affiliates.

In the party assembly in 2020, he was proclaimed president for four years on the grounds that he was the only candidate who had obtained 10% of the endorsements, but nobody knows how many endorsements he had.

As the process was done electronically, his rival, Carmelo González, from the Canary Islands, never knew how many guarantees he had had.

They just wouldn't let him into the assembly.

Abascal could have submitted his position to a vote despite being the only candidate, as Feijóo has done, but he did not want to.

Abascal belongs to the same political family as Putin

P.

How is it explained that private donations to Vox have been reduced by almost 90% despite its electoral success?

R.

It is one of the great mysteries.

In 2018, when he is extra-parliamentary, Vox has half a million euros in donations and in 2019, 1.5 million, which in 2020, already become the third Spanish political force, is reduced to just over 150,000 euros.

Either the enthusiasm of his donors has dropped suddenly or the fact that the Court of Auditors begins to audit his accounts has made him much more scrupulous than before.

P.

You say that Abascal was about to meet with Putin, but finally gave up.

Why?

R.

Abascal belongs to the same political family as Putin.

Putin says that as long as he is president there will be no same-sex marriage in Russia and he has a domestic violence law that decriminalizes a man who hits his wife if he does not cause her injuries or is a repeat offender.

Around the Andalusian elections, through a former KGB agent in Madrid, Putin communicated his interest in meeting Abascal personally.

The meeting begins to prepare, but at the last moment Abascal backs down out of “prudence”, according to him.

What happens is that Vox has many girlfriends in the European Parliament and has not yet decided who to marry.

Initially he had let himself be loved by Le Pen and Salvini, but he crossed the offer of Law and Justice, the party of the Polish ultraconservatives, who are Catholic fundamentalists and not secularists like the French and Italian.

After making his calculations, Abascal opts for the Poles, historical enemies of Russia, and that forces him to give up any flirtation with Putin, whom, however, he will not criticize in public until the ultra summit held in Madrid last January.

It should not be forgotten that his allies in Make You Hear had sought financing from the Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

P.

Vox has turned the courts into a kind of third chamber.

What have they achieved in Congress?

What are your main political achievements?

R.

In Congress they have not won any relevant vote and the greatest proof is their failure in the motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez.

But in court yes.

The amount of money they allocate to pay bail for lawsuits is enormous, almost 75% of what they spend on the rent of all their venues.

They shoot grainy fire and some piece falls: the state of alarm, the incorporation of Pablo Iglesias to the CNI commission, etc.

They benefit from the bungling and blunders, sometimes only formal, of the Government.

How far will they go?

It will not depend so much on how well they do it, but on how badly others do it.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-04-20

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