There are fewer left for the general elections on July 23 and El Hormiguero is once again part of the round of electoral interviews with the representatives of the most important political parties. For now, Pablo Motos has confirmed the presence of Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo next week.
However, in a letter published in the last hours by Vox, the far-right formation publicly denounces that the Antena 3 Televisión program has vetoed Santiago Abascal. In fact, Vox speaks here of a black hand against so that the leader of the Spanish far-right is not heard.
On Tuesday, June 27, Pedro Sánchez, current Prime Minister of Spain and candidate for the PSOE, and on Wednesday, June 28, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Popular Party, will visit El Hormiguero on the occasion of the upcoming general elections. However, for the moment, Santiago Abascal, the Vox candidate, will not do so.
As the ultra-right formation has published in an urgent letter addressed to the heads of the Antena 3 Televisión program, Pablo Motos and Jorge Salvador, Abascal would have been first invited, but then called off. It is here when Vox points out a veto coming from “someone” from Atresmedia, the audiovisual communication group where said space is broadcast.
For Vox, the announcement of the interviews with Sánchez and Feijóo “greatly draws their attention, given that their guest management department invited the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, to attend the program as part of a round of interviews with all the candidates for the presidency of the Government in the next elections”.
“After having thanked and accepted this interview from Vox, we proposed, as requested, a specific date and we await more information,” the letter continues. “The next thing we knew is that the invitation was canceled because, finally, the program would not enter into a political campaign since it was an entertainment space with many international guests already closed who, given the difficulty of dates, decided to ‘withdraw the invitations to politicians ‘”, you can read.
And, then, Vox finds out about the announcement of the interview with Pedro Sánchez and “we are informed that the leadership has decided to make room for the ‘two most representative political formations’ on its agenda.” And, here, Abascal’s party launches a complaint: “This limited offer of only two political forces in an electoral scenario like the current one is contrary to the desirable transparency and plurality that should accompany both the public and private media, which They are the result of a public concession”.
In said complaint, Vox points out that “the possibility is thus stolen that the public of El Hormiguero can know all the political options in conditions of equality, in order to demonstrate the neutrality and professionalism that the media, including private ones, must keep in electoral period”.
To finish the letter, the far-right formation ends with a: “In addition to expressing our surprise at that invitation first issued and then withdrawn, we reiterate our interest and desire to go to your program with the hope that the viewers of El Hormiguero can listen to all the candidates, also the president of Vox”.
As the culmination of this letter and already in the header of the tweet that includes it, Vox makes it clear that Santiago Abascal “did agree to go to El Hormiguero” and clearly points out the veto behind it. “But someone at Atresmedia has decided that Santiago Abascal should not be listened to. Why?” they wonder.
Let’s remember that Pablo Motos already interviewed the president of the far-right formation in October 2019, in one of the most watched interviews on the program up to that time. With more than four million viewers, this installment broke the audience record since Isabel Pantoja’s visit.
Of course, the boycott prior to the interview was impressive and the harassment of the Valencian presenter, once it was over, too. On one occasion, Motos said that he was about to come to blows with a man in a restaurant due to this issue.
