It is not often that a liberal party governs with the help of a neo-fascist party, but this is the case in Spain, where the conservative-liberal political party Ciudadanos (‘Citizens’, Cs) governs with the support of Vox in several autonomous Spanish regions.
But the polls show support for Cs is in free fall. This led to the party’s desperate attempt to stop relying on an increasingly radicalised Right and to look instead for a pact with the centre-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (‘Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party’, PSOE).
PSOE and Cs planned to file a motion of censure against the right-wing Partido Popular (‘Popular Party’, PP) in the south-eastern region of Murcia, following a new corruption scandal. PP, however, anticipated this move and, in order not to lose its hold on government, ‘convinced’ three deputies from Cs to vote against the motion. The result: another scandal of political malpractice and corruption was unleashed in Madrid.
The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso – a member of PP –promptly used this as an excuse to convene early regional elections, scheduled for 4 May. This was a smart move for two reasons.
First, because the polls predict a majority for the extreme-Right parties (PP and Vox) and the fall of the left-wing Unidas Podemos (‘United We Can’, UP), which is not expected to reach the 5% of the vote necessary to enter Parliament.
Second, because Spain’s left-wing parties have been experiencing a serious crisis for years, aggravated by internal power struggles. A symptom of this crisis is that the Left is split in two, with two warring political parties: Más Madrid (‘More Madrid’) and UP.
Recently, Díaz Ayuso has moved the PP even further to the Right, adopting a Trumpian rhetoric of confrontation with the Spanish government, and promoting populist slogans about the “freedom of Madrid people”. This has pushed the Spanish government, which relies on support from Spain’s regional governments, towards less restrictive measures in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. This, in turn, has led to more COVID-19 cases and more deaths. The country now faces the unpromising prospect in the weeks to come of seeing a new regional government in Madrid that falls somewhere between Trumpian Right (PP) and neo-fascist (Vox).
Faced with this scenario, Pablo Iglesias, leader of Unidas Podemos, has decided to quit his post in central government (he is officially second vice president) and stand in the Madrid elections with the aim of stopping the extreme Right.
Iglesias’s decision has bemused many and changed people’s assessments of UP, pushing the party up to fight for third position in the elections – which is enough to make the Right nervous. Nevertheless, some people think that his decision only underlines the lack of internal democracy in Unidas Podemos, a criticism levelled at the group for some years.
Right-wing influence in Madrid
According to Juan Carlos Monedero, one of the founders of Unidas Podemos, Iglesias’s response reflects the absolute “necessity” of “not arriving too late” when it comes to the threat of a far-Right coalition, which would give the far Right the “ability to change things from Madrid”.
Certainly, the Right has the most to gain. Monedero told me that the Right and the extreme Right have huge influence in Madrid: “They have universities and colleges, since the private predominates over the public. Also, they have solid support from the audiovisual media and from all the newspapers except El País.”
According to Monedero, this is a moment of real “danger” and part of the rise of a “21st-century fascism”, which shares some characteristics with the fascism of the 1930s. That is, aggressive nationalism, the incitement of violence, and looking for scapegoats in immigrants, sexual minorities and the Left.
This kind of fascism also responds cannily to the frustrations of the public. It is no coincidence that for years Madrid has been the place where neoliberalism has been most welcome, while it has had a harmful effect on the rest of Spain, decimating communities with unfair competition and fiscal dumping.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
