The so-called liberal sector of Vox has discovered that the dream of turning Spain into a tax haven through a political operation in which religious fundamentalism and extreme Spanish nationalism would serve as shock troops has come to nothing. A defeat that partly highlights that the world of money that boosted the rise of Santiago Abascal’s party has already untied the hose. It is now on the table if this crisis is the first ringing in Vox headquarters of the death knells that were previously heard in Ciutadans.
Undoubtedly, the electoral and social growth of Vox since 2017 can be explained above all as a reaction to the process in Catalonia and the exacerbation of Spanish nationalism as a response. But in its foundation, economic affairs, especially the criticism of public and social spending and above all taxation, played a key role. Precisely for this reason, the now losers in the internal struggle, starting with Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, feel authorized to claim the liberal essences. And the economic program, as in the case of Ciutadans from 2014, is explained by the financial support of certain economic sectors, eager to create speakers for their interests.
In reality, it all started with the then Madrid leader Esperanza Aguirre, when she was the president of the Community of the capital of the kingdom, at the turn of the century. Many of those who would end up being part of the founding group of Vox, starting with Abascal, who considered themselves liberals, despite their dependence on the public budget, hid under his generous cloak.
In those years, while nurturing dreams of succeeding Mariano Rajoy at the head of the PP, Aguirre applied to his community the program of unfair fiscal competition with the rest of the territories, with progressive tax reductions. Aguirre articulated in Spain the fiscal revolt of the global elites, a phenomenon that originated in the USA. With his speech and with the protection and encouragement of his local preachers. And, for the most part, taking as a model the PP of José María Aznar of the legislature of the absolute majority, the authentic, the original.
This was one of the battle lines with which Aguirre fought the PP, which was then in government. The main one, in fact. At that time, the great enemy of the liberal group of the Madrid PP was its party colleague, Cristóbal Montoro, Minister of Finance and responsible for the most drastic tax increases in democracy as a result of the fiscal failure of the State due to the housing bubble crisis. For the Aguirrists, and for a large part of the capital’s elites, Montoro became the most insulted politician, a kind of communist disguised as a conservative.
The founding fathers of Vox, and to a large extent also those of Ciutadans d’Albert Rivera, rallied against this fiscal policy. The deployment of Ciutadans throughout Spain and the foundation of Vox took place on the same day. The difference between the two formations, in the field of economic proposals, was that the first was located inside the margins of the mainstream, with names like Luis Garicano [London School of Economics (LSE) and the world of schools of business] and Toni Roldán (also from the LSE and disciple of the former), close to the financial world; while the latter flirted with anarcho-capitalism and the dismantling of the welfare state with Rubén Manso (former inspector of the Bank of Spain and military) and Víctor González Coello from Portugal (linked in the past to Goldman Sachs).
The now defenestrated Iván Espinosa de los Monteros was his visible face in the business world, as he was part of a lineage with a long monarchical trajectory, first, and Francoist, then, with his father, Carlos, former president of Iberia, of Mercedes Benz and of the Cercle d’Empresaris de Madrid and commissioner of the Brand Spain with the Rajoy government, as the highest exponent. A direct link, but never explicit, to create a weight for the PP to tilt it further to the right.
Iván Espinosa de los Monteros was the contact with the radical cubs of those elites most critical of Rajoy’s policies, like Jacobo González-Robatto, son of a financial executive and former president of Pescanova. First they left the PP and went to the Ciutadans party, which they hailed especially in the world of cities, with Madrid at the head. When, after the elections of April 2019, Rivera did not live up to their expectations, they changed horses and in November they marched behind the banners of Abascal.
Vox went from having 1.5 million Ciudadanos to surpassing him by more than two. A historic turnaround in just over six months. The departure of the new lorrigadas towards the ultra-right dictated the critical financial drought for Ciutadans and the abundance for Vox.
But, clearly, the phalanxes of the ultra-right are not those of the middle classes of the big cities. And in the last elections, the politico-social experiment of using the most conservative sectors to support the ultra-liberal economic program desired by some aristocrats of money already showed its limits. And the troop revolted.
At the same time, those who with their resources boosted Vox now seem to have understood, in view of July 23, that the idea was not good. Not only does it not ensure victory, it activates the other side even more. And, in addition, it revives the always difficult Catalan affair, which Abascal referred to in civil war terms at the end of the campaign, despite the messages that had been sent to him not to get involved. And with the bank tax of the Italian Giorgia Meloni on the horizon. Perhaps, more than facing the decline of a sector, we are witnessing that of Vox as a whole.
