The government agreement between the PP and Vox to govern the Generalitat Valenciana offered a first detonation yesterday, with possible effects on this pact, regarding the denialism of the Abascal party on gender violence. The number two of the training in the autonomous list for Valencia, José María Llanos, potential Minister of Justice, stated to TVE that “gender violence does not exist, male violence does not exist”. Statements that, despite being consistent with Vox’s ideology, were underlined twenty-four hours after the Valencian agreement and generated an avalanche of counter reactions. So intense that even Alberto Núñez Feijóo was forced to intervene to affirm on social networks “that gender violence does exist” and to warn that the popular people will not give up their principles “whatever the cost”.
The next Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, was then added to the table, who pointed out in another tweet that “gender violence and male violence do exist”. Mazón added: “Not only will I not allow us to take a single step back, but, in addition, we will strengthen all measures to protect women in any form of violence.”
The reaction of the PP caused surprise in the Valencian left, since in the agreement signed between the PP and Vox for this legislature, which includes 50 programmatic points, the cultural and symbolic account of the formation of Abascal is accepted in terms of gender. In fact, there is no reference to gender or sexist violence, nor to feminism or equality. On the contrary, it incorporates the “fight against domestic violence”, an idea that has always been part of Vox’s narrative since its foundation. Hours later, José María Llanos himself wrote another tweet on social networks in which he stated that he would like to “rectify” and “condemn all kinds of violence against women, including sexism, what I deny is the existence of gender violence”. He remained in the position that forced Feijóo and Mazón to react.
The PSOE, for its part, went out in a blog to denounce “the cynicism and hypocrisy” of Feijóo to condemn gender violence and at the same time agree on governments with Vox. The deputy general secretary of the Socialists and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, assured that “women will not allow any retrogression in our rights”. “Gender violence exists and every murder of a woman shocks us as a society. The Minister of Education and spokeswoman for the PSOE, Pilar Alegría, and the head of Territorial Policy, IsabelRodríguez, were also very critical.
The cultural and symbolic story of Vox permeates the Valencian agreement. The ideology of Vox, embodied in the agreement document on issues such as historical memory, the rules of which are to be repealed; the evidence that there is no mention of climate change, the fight against “illegal immigration” or employment, threatens to generate quite a few problems for the Valencian PP.
Feijóo’s harsh reaction confirms what was already advanced on Thursday: that Génova is alert to the consequences of a pact with Vox that could negatively contaminate the 23-J campaign. The state leadership was aware of the approved document, what it seems is that the consequences were not taken into account.
