The Popular Party and Vox are officializing their marriage today in Valencia, the main showcase for the changes taking place in Spanish politics. This evening will take place the investiture of Alicante lawyer Carlos Mazón Guixot as the new president of the Generalitat Valenciana, with the support of the extreme right. The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has decided to celebrate the event with magnificence with a meeting that will take place later in the recreational area of ??the port of Valencia. Vox wants to make it clear that the change bears its stamp.
The Valencian Community is a key part of the current electoral cycle. It is key because of its demographic weight – the fourth most populated community (4.9 million inhabitants), after Madrid (6.6), Catalonia (7.5) and Andalusia (8.4)–; for its geographical position in the center of the Mediterranean arc, an area of ??economic expansion, and for its political weight on the Spanish territorial map. Valencia decants.
“The political future of Spain will be resolved in the Valencian Community”, headlined La Vanguardia on April 9, seven weeks before the local and regional elections on May 28. “The turbulence generated around Sumar may leave the left in the minority”, added the subtitle. Indeed, the demobilization of the left wing of the coalition that governed the Generalitat Valenciana was the determining factor in its defeat.
The PSPV-PSOE advanced, but Unides Podemos lost 59% of the votes obtained in 2019, and was left out of the Valencian Parliament due to the impossibility of exceeding the 5% threshold. The Valencian coalition Compromís also fell, although less, with a decrease of 19%.
The Spanish national sphere, with its narrative in Madrid, clearly prevailed over the autonomous sphere. The government that had managed to attract to the Valencian Community one of the most important industrial investments in recent years (the Volkswagen group’s gigafactory in Sagunto) was defeated by the currents of funds. Here is a perfect x-ray of the political moment in Spain.
It was also in the Valencian Community where a pact was first forged between the PP and Vox after 28-M. He negotiated in secret with Mazón to prevent his investiture from being bogged down by the general elections brought forward by Pedro Sánchez. Lightning negotiation before the waters of the Albufera were more murky, with staging in the hands of Vox, which generated great irritation in the leadership of the Popular Party. It was weeks of true sadness on Carrer Génova in Madrid, until Alberto Núñez Feijóo rescued an old Spanish saying: “Un co feto, ja está feto” (“A lo hecho, pecho”).
The PP-Vox pact has been reproduced in dozens of Valencian councils, from which significant news is beginning to arrive. Yesterday, Borriana Town Council (Plana Baixa) decided to cancel the subscription to several publications in the Catalan language, including the children’s magazine Cavall Fort. The language issue is about to resurface in the Valencian Community, under pressure from the extreme right.
In the 1990s, in tense circumstances as well, the Valencian president Eduardo Zaplana and the Catalan president Jordi Pujol agreed with complete discretion on a fundamental issue: the new Valencian Language Academy, promoted by the PP, would respect the Normes de Castelló of 1932, norms for the unification of the Valencian orthography in accordance with the rules of the Institute of Catalan Studies. In a few words, the unity of Catalan/Valencian. A capital issue for the survival of the language, as can be understood very well in a Spain that has been able to preserve the normative unity of the Castilian language in Latin America.
Yesterday, the new Balearic Government agreed that knowledge of Catalan will no longer be a requirement to obtain a doctor’s position in public health.
Old tensions are revived and some destabilization strategies are repeated. Núñez Feijóo again questioned the neatness of voting by mail yesterday, and encouraged postmen to distribute all the votes, “despite their bosses”. They go to all of them. A statement very calculated to sow suspicion, made by the man who presided over the Correos service between the years 2000 and 2003. Just yesterday Correos issued an official note in which it claimed the neatness of its management and the honorability of all their employees.
