Galician farmers have also joined the protests that are taking place in the middle of the regional election campaign. Today there were tractor units planned in Lugo, where ranchers have been battling for years against a legal framework that they feel increasingly impoverishes them, and in Ourense. Just over 5% of the gross domestic product comes from agriculture or fishing and a good part of it in these two provinces.
The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has been preaching in these territories for some days against “the hell of the 2030 agenda”, the compendium, according to the far right, of all the policies that are decimating the primary sector. An agenda that, according to what he denounced at an event in Ourense last Saturday, the PP and PSOE share in Brussels “voting together every day to impose restrictions on the countryside and to make the generational change in the countryside and in fishing absolutely impossible.” . Vox sees the farmers’ protests as a way to enter Galician politics, which until now has always closed the door to it.
And it will remain closed in these elections, in which not even the most combative farmers do not want to hear about the ultranationalist party.
Roberto López is a rancher from Lugo who a few years ago acquired considerable notoriety by explaining on social networks the discomfort of those who still endure working in the livestock sector.
However, on Monday, a day before the first important tractor rallies were held in Galicia, he distanced himself from those calls made through WhatsApp groups and outside of traditional agricultural organizations. “I’ll go,” López explained, “but it depends on who I see behind this, I’ll take the tractor and go back home.” “I, with some people, am not even going to have a beer.”
The one who has supported the mobilizations from the first moment is the Government of the Xunta de Galicia. Its Rural Minister, José González, assured this morning: “We are on the side of the demands of farmers and ranchers” and has placed the responsibility of defending the interests of the primary sector on the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, “who is who has a dialogue with Europe.”
Also Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the president of the PP, in his particular tour parallel to that of the popular candidate Alfonso Rueda, has toured rural areas and has had himself photographed next to tractors while at his rallies he stands as the defender of the Galician agricultural sector. The PP does not have a single vote to lose in this campaign in which its absolute majority is faltering.
Before the start of the campaign, the PP leader asked Vox not to run in the Galician elections so as not to undermine the conservatives’ options. The ultranationalists did not heed that request and are fighting for space in the Pazo del Hórreo, the headquarters of the Galician Parliament. However, your options are nil for now.
Those who know the Galician agricultural world well assume that it is impossible for Vox to succeed. “No, that territory is tied up by the PP. Many things can change in these elections, but this one, surely not”
None of the known polls give him the slightest option. In fact, according to some, at least a quarter of the 116,000 votes they obtained in this community in the July general elections – 4.79% – is, in the regional campaign, in the pocket of the PP. Below 5% there are no options to enter the Galician Parliament.
