Vox has exploded in the Balearic Islands and, as a side effect, has weakened the Government of the popular Marga Prohens, who relies on the ultras to govern the islands.
The parliamentary group in the insular legislative chamber has disappeared, since five of the seven that formed it have expelled the other two from the group, while the national leadership has decided to expel those five from the party and support two purged ones.
The struggle began this morning when the Vox group in the Balearic Parliament has left out of the group itself the provincial president of the ultra formation, Patricia de las Heras, and the president of Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, who will have to leave The charge.
The causes alleged by the parliamentary spokesperson, Idoia Ribas, have been “internal” circumstances of the group and to achieve “the best possible unity.”
Hours later, the vice president and general secretary of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, announced that he will request the party's Guarantees Committee "for the immediate precautionary expulsion of these five individuals who have been motivated exclusively by their personal ambition."
Vox began its journey this parliamentary term with eight deputies, but since they allied themselves with the popular Prohens, the group has gone from rebellion to rebellion and there are now only five, who will also be expelled from the formation.
The trickle began in October when the Menorcan deputy Xisco Cardona left the group, becoming a non-attached parliamentarian after the decision of Vox Baleares to block the budgets of its PP partners against the mandate of the national leadership.
With this combination of sanctions and expulsions, Vox has ceased to have its own entity in the Chamber, since the group is controlled by five party deputies who will no longer belong to the party in the coming hours.
Furthermore, this clash deepens the crisis that the party founded by Santiago Abascal is experiencing, affected by the trickle of casualties in its ranks and unfavorable polls.
The departure occurs the day after Abascal has been proclaimed president of the ultra formation until 2028, without anyone voting for him because he was the only candidate that has obtained the endorsement of more than 10% of the members.
Abascal had described the existence of divisions or currents within his formation as a “science fiction movie” and had blamed the “deafening noise” caused by the “fake news” about Vox.
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Just the day after Abascal said this, in the presence of De Las Heras and Le Senne but in the absence of the five who fired them, a crisis has opened that beheads the ultras on the islands, although it is nothing more than the embodiment of the open war in the parliamentary group between those who followed the guidelines of the national leadership and those who went it alone.
The last episode occurred last week when De las Heras asked in a press release for the end of linguistic immersion and criticized the fact that it remained active six months after the elections.
A communication supported by the national leadership to which the five rebel deputies were opposed.
This led to the decision to expel De Las Heras and Le Senne this Monday, which was communicated this morning to the Board of the Parliament of the Balearic Islands through a letter in which the far-right party states that, in a meeting held in the headquarters of the parliamentary group offices building to which the seven Vox deputies have been summoned, it has been unanimously agreed by the five attendees - among whom Le Senne and de las Heras do not appear - the expulsion of both deputies.
De las Heras's statement, according to critical deputies, was the straw that broke the camel's back, since the parliamentary group accused the CEP of continually torpedoing their work.
As an example, they highlight that they were hindered from meeting with Vox councilors in the archipelago to debate the new regional law for the taxi sector.
The tension between the parliamentarians and the provincial leadership led to a meeting being held on the 16th with the national general secretary, Ignacio Garriga, who aligned himself with the sector headed by De las Heras.
Added to this was the discomfort with the president of the regional parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, of Vox, who acted outside the parliamentary group and came to hinder the negotiations with the PP, according to critics, reports
Miguel González.
The Vox parliamentary group demands that the Chamber Board adopt "immediately" the measures planned to make effective the expulsion of the president of the formation and the president of Parliament so that they become non-attached deputies.
They demand that the Board inform both of them of their termination from the positions they have held in the different bodies of Parliament.
The expulsion of Le Senne will force him to stop being president of Parliament, since article 39 of the regulations specifies that the members of the table will cease when they stop belonging to the parliamentary group.
It is not the only article that affects you, since 24.8 specifically says: "The deputies who stop belonging to their parliamentary group will lose the right to occupy the place they occupied up to this moment in the different bodies of Parliament."
The letter is signed by deputies Idoia Ribas, who is also spokesperson for the parliamentary group;
Sergio Rodríguez, María José Verdú, Agustín Buades, Sergio Rodríguez and Manuela Cañadas.
They are the five facing the national leadership, expelled from the party and who now control that space in the regional Parliament.
👉 @Igarrigavaz
"I am going to propose to the party's Guarantees Committee the immediate expulsion of the 5 subjects of the Balearic Parliament, 5 deputies motivated solely by personal ambition."
"VOX has not expelled anyone. It has been those 5 deputies who have expelled from… pic.twitter.com/ISGj8HNoeZ
— VOX 🇪🇸 (@vox_es) January 29, 2024
“They fired me for following the instructions of the national leadership,” said Le Senne in an appearance before the media, in which he accused the five wayward deputies of “hijacking” the parliamentary group.
“There is a somewhat peculiar situation, that the Vox parliamentary group is kidnapped in the hands of people who are going to stop belonging to Vox.
They will continue in the parliamentary group but they will not represent Vox because they will be outside the party,” said Le Senne, who this week will cease to be president of the Balearic chamber.
For his part, De Las Heras has stated through his account in X that “those who are motivated by personal ambitions have no place in this great project.”
Both have received the support of the general secretary of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, who has insisted that the expulsion of Le Senne and De Las Heras has been a decision made “unilaterally” by five “subjects”, who have “moved by a personal ambition” The tension in the parliamentary group has not stopped growing for months.
The first clash between the deputies occurred when some were forced to vote against the spending ceiling proposed by the PP at the beginning of the budget process, despite orders from the leadership in Madrid, which had urged them to support it.
This rebellion, led by spokesperson Idoia Ribas, generated a gap in the group itself, leaving the deputies who wanted to support the PP in the minority, among whom was Cardona, who ended up leaving the party after the discrepancies.
Institutional crisis
The popular Marga Prohens governs the islands with the parliamentary support of Vox, which decided not to become part of the autonomous Executive.
Despite the expulsion of these two deputies, PP and Vox continue to have the majority, as they have 30 deputies, enough to be able to carry out their policies with 25 deputies from the PP and 5 from the extreme right.
All the groups on the left have 25 deputies, in addition to the three non-attached members expelled from Vox and the deputy from Formentera, who was also expelled from Sa Unió, the right-wing party of PP and Compromís that governs the island.
All in all, the political scenario leaves Prohens even more tied to the five Vox deputies, who are essential for her to maintain the majority.
Vox spokesperson in Parliament, Idoia Ribas, speaks at a press conference accompanied by deputies from the party, this morning.EUROPA PRESS (EUROPA PRESS)
The unknown now is which group of deputies Prohens will cling to in order to carry out his policies: the group of five deputies who will no longer belong to Vox, but who will allow him to have a numerical majority (he needs four votes to maintain his majority), or the two Vox deputies, who will join the non-affiliated group, but who depend on the national leadership of the far-right formation.
For the moment, Prohens has tried to throw things out, justifying that the situation "affects Parliament and not the Executive."
“I call for responsibility, for Vox to solve this internal crisis as soon as possible, but as I say, it is an independent party and it is a situation that affects Parliament,” Prohens said at an event in Menorca.
“Maximum respect for the political crises of other parties,” he concluded, insisting that this is not the first time that a president of Parliament from a party has been expelled, as happened with the representative of Podemos, Xelo Huertas.
The election of Le Senne as president of Parliament was controversial due to his ideas.
For years on his social networks he has been expressing denialist ideas about the existence of sexist violence (“women are more belligerent, because they have no penis”) and the LGTBI community, vaccines against Covid or climate change (“the climate ember”). "), matters that he regularly made fun of.
During his presidency in the Autonomous Chamber, his absence from the usual reception for Sahrawi children who spend the summer with families from the islands and his refusal to attend the act of commemoration of the Constitution last December to dedicate himself to his place to protest in front of the PSOE headquarters against the amnesty law.