Catalonia is no stranger to the consolidation of the far-right as a political option seen in last Sunday’s elections. Vox, the party led by Santiago Abascal, won more than 5 percent of the vote, just two points below the Spanish average.
With a noteworthy corrective factor: the significant presence of this formation in Catalan municipalities – it is the seventh electoral force – coexists with the emergence of a constellation of small far-right pro-independence parties that have also made a place in the town halls Altogether, the ultras have managed to be present – ​​barring exceptions, with one or two representatives at most – in 80 town councils with a total of 132 councillors.
The vast majority are from Vox. This formation obtained 124 councillors, so that it multiplied by forty the results of the previous municipal elections of 2019, in which it obtained only three representatives, all of them concentrated in a single municipality, Salt, in Girona. Now there are four, one more than then.
While in the Parliament of Catalonia the so-called sanitary cordon continues to be applied to the 11 deputies that Vox obtained in the regional elections – as if he did not want to see them, the president of the Generalitat turns his back on the ultra-nationalist representatives when he answers them in the sessions of control— since last Sunday, Santiago Abascal’s formation has representatives in 77 municipalities in Catalonia. In total, 3 million Catalans have far-right councilors sitting in the plenary hall of their town halls.
The Vox vote in Catalonia presents some significant novelties. The evidence that the municipalities in the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona are where he has managed to place a greater number of councilors should not hide the fact that his best percentage results, between 9 and 10%, are not in this territory.
They are also found in other more exotic latitudes, in municipalities characterized by the dispersed urbanism of the old summer estates now converted into first residences. Salou, Cunit, Piera, Cubelles or Tordera… It is the Catalonia of alarms. Houses with gardens in developments far from public services and where security has become a recurring concern. Where Prosegur or Securitas Direct veneers placed on doors and windows are more common than geraniums. He dreams of the house and the garden is restless.
In some of these census sections, Vox has managed to get almost 20% of the votes. As in the urbanization of Can Claramunt (Piera) or (Tarragona) where this formation gathered 19% and 20.5% of the vote. The two percentages quadruple the average Catalan vote in Vox.
The far right got it right. Their propaganda has been hanging on the billboards of these scattered housing estates for months: “With Vox you will live in a safe neighborhood” printed on a purple background – the Podem color – with the image of hooded young people. Not only has he managed to place the occupations debate at the center of the campaign, but he has also managed to capitalize on this fear in votes.
In the metropolitan area, except for Badalona, ​​where GarcÃa Albiol has absorbed all the votes, Vox is present in all municipalities. Some results are very striking: in L’Hospitalet there are census areas in the Florida neighborhood where the PSC has won, but the ultra party has been the second force with 17% of the votes, well above the Catalan average.
In Mataró, where Vox has reached 12% of the votes, in some census areas it even exceeds these marks and has obtained more than 20%. In the capital of the Maresme, as in L’Hospitalet, the PSC governs, whose leadership already recognizes that the growth of the ultra vote constitutes a serious threat and a problem to be able to constitute reasonable alternatives to independence in many towns and cities.
The strength of the security and immigration vector – in Mataró, for example, there is a district with 24% of the population born in another country – has an impact on these electoral colleges.
This combination can explain results as surprising as that of Manresa, where another ultra party, this time pro-independence, the National Front has obtained two councilors in addition to what Vox also obtained. The uncompromising vote adds up to 12% in the capital of Bages, where Esquerra Republicana has won.
But if anywhere you can see that something is going wrong in Catalonia, it is in Ripoll. In the town where the young terrorists who attacked La Rambla and Cambrils in August 2017 were raised, the majority party is the Aliança Catalana formation, led by SÃlvia Orriols. He has obtained six councilors out of the possible 17. The leader of this formation, on whose website images of the police beating the voters of the 1-O are mixed with those of suspected immigrants being arrested by the Mossos, was a Catalan State militant and in the 2019 elections she already got a place as councilor for the National Front.
The first is the last. Josep Anglada, the leader of Plataforma per Catalunya, the first xenophobic formation of Catalan inspiration, has managed to return to Vic City Council with his new party Som Identitaris.
If you add up the votes of one sign and another in Catalonia, the far-right obtained a total of 157,600 ballots and was less than 100 thousand votes away from the 247,000 obtained by the PP. However, in Catalonia it seems very unlikely that on June 17, when the town councils will be formed, these votes will count to form governments. But the fact that they are not taken into account does not mean that they do not exist.
