The nightmare that began on the night of 23-J at the Vox national headquarters seems not to have ended. After the electoral crash, the impossible sum of an absolute majority of the right and the inability to condition a new government, the ultra party has seen this week how its ideological bunker cracked, revealing the internal disputes that divide the training.
The extreme right is experiencing its worst crisis in years, despite the fact that its leaders blame the media for orchestrating a “manipulation campaign to bury a political formation that has come to plunder the Spanish political landscape”, as it told the microphones of Radio Nacional on Friday its general secretary, Ignacio Garriga. A battered situation that coincides with the start of the legislature in which the parliamentary group – headless for now – begins an uncertain journey with a possible course towards irrelevance.
Sources of the formation admit that the starting signal, which will be given next Thursday with the constitution of the Table of the Congress of Deputies, is coming “complicated”. The ultras are going to fight for a position in this body, in which the previous legislature already had a seat, but they see it as “almost impossible” to wrest the majority from the left; a possibility in which, on the other hand, the Popular Party does believe. And that scenario, which they see as unlikely, is precisely what they consider would be “their lifeboat” in Congress.
In other words, aware of the reality check that going from 52 deputies to 33 seats in this new period has meant, Vox’s hope is to forge a common right-wing front in the chamber in which those of Santiago Abascal and Alberto Núñez Feijóo normalize their relations, according to the same sources. And that first photograph of the right-wing –who have denied one another and the other one in recent times– can be seen on the voting panel of the Mesa constitution; either a win or a loss.
In the leadership of Vox, according to sources close to them, they believe that neither the popular candidate nor the socialist one will be sworn in as president of the government; that electoral repetition is the card in the deck that has the most options. For this reason, they believe that these weeks are crucial for this rapprochement with the Popular Party with which they are so eager. If his forecasts come true, the desire is “not to repeat the mistakes of the last campaign in which the Popular Party has demonized Vox; only together will we make it to Moncloa”. If his predictions fail, and there is a legislature for a while, the premise is the same: strengthen the right-wing front.
A strategy that is not without risk, as admitted by a Vox deputy who is repeating this legislature. The main one: the bear hug that the popular ones can give them. The extreme right will now not be able to use by itself the tricks that gave it notoriety in the last legislature. By failing to exceed 50 deputies, they will not be able to again flood the Constitutional Court with appeals against the reforms proposed by the next government. Eccentricities such as the motion of no confidence by Ramón Tamames, who at 89 years old took the podium to defend some positions contrary to Vox, also ended. Both for the appeals of unconstitutionality and for motions of censure, they must join –as a minority partner– the Popular Party, which would be, in any case, the one who should lead.
There is another stone in this journey. And it’s not small. Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, who resigned last Tuesday to collect his deputy act, leaves the position of parliamentary spokesman vacant. And in the dwindling group there are not too many parliamentarians with experience. Despite the fact that numerous media place Ignacio Hoces, one of the gurus who whispers in the ears of the ultra leader, as the new spokesman in Congress, management sources deny that such a replacement passes through him. However, Hoces, from the rope of Jorge Buxadé – a leader who has won the pulse of Espinosa de los Monteros – will be one of Vox’s heavyweights in Congress. Nobody questions it.
In the last party press calls, a woman has been flanking the spokesmen; without losing detail of her words. It is María Ruiz, who attended as number two for Madrid after Santiago Abascal. Ruiz, as management sources explain, is one of the best positioned to replace Espinosa de los Monteros. Pepa Millán and Rocío de Mer are also on the list, due to Vox’s interest in reinforcing female profiles, which are scarce on their lists.
