Spanish far Right to help form regional government

SPAIN’S far-Right Vox party is expected to enter a regional coalition with conservatives in Madrid after a divisive election campaign which featured death threats, echoes of the Spanish Civil War and a rally held in defiance of Covid-19 warnings.

Vox said it would put its seats in Madrid’s parliament at the service of the conservative Popular Party (PP), which has ruled the region for nearly three decades. It calls for a “Spaniards first” welfare and immigration policy,

Rocío Monasterio, Vox’s lead candidate, said “conditions” would be placed on that support, but did not confirm the party will demand to enter a coalition for the first time since bursting onto the political scene three years ago.

Vox won 15 per cent of the vote in Spain’s last general election in 2019. It is about nine per cent ahead of that in the regional vote, to be held on Tuesday. The PP appears certain to win the most seats on about 40 per cent.

In a sign of great polarisation, two hard-Left parties are set to win a quarter of the vote between them while the centrist liberal Ciudadanos is predicted to lose all its seats after winning 19 per cent in the capital region two years ago. The divisions have even extended to fashion. Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the hard-Left Podemos, wears a brand that celebrates a people’s revolt while Vox leader Santiago Abascal sports a bullfighter’s cape in Spanish flag colours.

The tone was set when protesters tried to sabotage Vox’s first rally, in Vallecas, a stronghold of working-class Left-wingers. Some 30 people were injured by bricks and bottles.

Ms Monasterio later sparked a walkout of other candidates from a radio debate when she refused to condemn the fact that Mr Iglesias had received a letter with bullets from an old Spanish army machine gun. Her justification was because Left-wing parties had not condemned the violence in Vallecas.

At a rally of more than 500 people in Villanueva del Pardillo on Thurday, Mr Abascal harangued Pedro Sánchez’s government for ruining Spain with its lockdown and said Vox would deport unaccompanied migrant minors that Vox claims are responsible for crime and, in particular, the rape of young woman in a Madrid park.

Lola López had waited for the Vox leader. She said: “We have democracy thanks to Franco. The Right has always had a guilt complex because we won the Civil War. They, the communists, are the violent ones who have killed millions and they call us fascists.”