- Title: EU elections: Spain's far-right party Vox takes European stage
- Date: 20th May 2019
- Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (RECENT - MAY 10, 2019) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** ABASCAL AND HEAD OF THE VOX LIST FOR THE EUROPEAN ELECTION JORGE BUXADE ARRIVING FOR THE PRESENTATION OF VOX CANDIDATES TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LEADER OF FAR-RIGHT PARTY VOX, SANTIAGO ABASCAL, SAYING: "Vox is the first party after many years of democracy that r
- Embargoed: 3rd June 2019 10:46
- Keywords: Vox far-righ far-right party Vox Spain Spanish far-righ Santiago Abascal European election Jorge Buxade
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA008AFPFLMV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Residents of Madrid turned out in droves to celebrate their patron saint San Isidro on May 15, but with imminent European and local election on May 26, political parties took the opportunity to pitch their policies as women and men decked out in traditional attire celebrated a centuries old tradition in a park named after the patron saint himself.
Joining the trend of emerging far-right parties in Europe, Spain's new party Vox led by a former member of the conservative People's Party is expected to win its first representatives in the European parliament after getting seats in the national parliament for the first time in the April 28 general election.
A GAD3 poll published by the ABC newspaper on May 13 predicted 7.8% of the vote for Vox which would get them five seats in the European assembly.
Riding on the tide of nationalist feelings triggered by Catalonia's independence drive, party leader Santiago Abascal has described Vox's gains as a 'reconquest' and has vowed to defend Spain's national sovereignty in Europe and its borders from mass migration.
Vox was established in 2013 as an anti-immigration party that also opposes giving more autonomy to Spain's regions. It favours reducing taxes and has benefited from Europe's rise of far-right parties, but unlike other countries in Europe, the anti-immigration discourse has not captured much support amongst Spanish voters.
"It's still a fairly feeble issue in political terms. It doesn't carry much water actually as an argument in Spanish politics nowadays. So essentially it is nationalism which is very basic and built on antis: anti-muslim, anti-immigration, anti-women, anti-gay," Alejandro Quiroga, a professor of Spanish history at Newcastle University said.
In December Vox upended Spanish politics when it won 12 seats in an election in the region of Andalusia, the first electoral victory for the far-right since Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970s.
In April it went from zero to 24 seats in the national parliament championing Spanish unity it is electoral platform and, while it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late Dictator Francisco Franco, Vox's signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain's regional governments.
Spain's Socialists, which won the national election on April 28 without a parliamentary majority, were seen by the GAD3 poll as winning 20 seats in the upcoming election, or 30.3% of the vote. That would be six more seats than in the 2014 EU election.
PP would be second, but with its number of seats dropping from 16 to 12, after it lost more than half its seats in the national election. The center-right Ciudadanos would see its number of lawmakers jump from 2 to 10.
(Production: Silvio Castellanos, Marco Trujillo, Catherine Macdonald, Miguel Gutierrez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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