Vox (political party)
Vox is a national conservative political party in Spain. Founded in 2013, it is currently led by party president Santiago Abascal, and vice president and secretary-general Ignacio Garriga. Vox has been described as far-right or radical right.
The party entered the Spanish parliament for the first time after winning seats in the April 2019 general election. Later that year, it received 3.6 million votes in the November 2019 general election, winning 52 seats and becoming the third-largest party in the Congress of Deputies. Its public support reached its peak within the next few years, according to [|the results of subsequent regional elections] and opinion polling, but in the 2023 Spanish general election showed worse results: a loss of 19 seats in parliament. In the European Parliament, the six deputies of Vox are members of Patriots for Europe after a stint in the European Conservatives and Reformists Group.
History
Early years
Origins (2013–2014)
Vox was founded on 17 December 2013, and publicly launched at a press conference in Madrid on 16 January 2014, as a split from the People's Party. This schism was interpreted as an offshoot of "neoconservative" or "social conservative" PP party members. The party platform called for the rewriting of the Spanish constitution so as to curb regional autonomy and abolish regional parliaments. Several founding members of the party had been members of the platform "reconversion.es", which had issued a manifesto in 2012 calling for a recentralization of the State. Vidal-Quadras was proclaimed as the first chairman in March 2014.Their initial funding, totalling nearly 972,000 euros, came in the form of individual donations from supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, thanks to their "personal relationship" with Vidal-Quadras, who had supported the NCRI during his stint in the EU Parliament. There is no evidence that Vox has broken Spanish or EU funding rules accepting these donations.
The 2014 European elections marked the first time the newly formed Vox fielded a candidate, with Vidal-Quadras running under its banner, though he narrowly failed to retain his seat in the European Parliament. Vidal Quadras later left the party due to both the political failure at the European election and his inability to impose his stances in the party. He would argue in 2018 that the party shifted from a "liberal conservative, Europeanist, and reformist" proposal, to a "nationalist, revisionist, Eurosceptic and confessional" one.
Abascal's early leadership (2014–2017)
In September 2014 the party elected Santiago Abascal, one of the founders, as its president, and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, also a founder, as General Secretary. Eleven members of the National Executive Committee were also elected.The party took part in the 2015 and 2016 general elections, scoring 0.23% and 0.20% of the votes respectively.
Amidst the Spanish constitutional crisis precipitated by the Catalan referendum, Vox opted to not participate in the Catalan regional elections of 2017. After the Catalan declaration of independence, the party sued the Parliament of Catalonia and several independentist politicians. Its membership grew by 20% in the span of forty days immediately following this action.
Electoral breakthrough
Entrance into institutions (2018–2019)
On 10 September 2018, Vox enlisted Juan Antonio Morales as a party member. On 2 December 2018, they won 12 parliamentary seats in the Andalusian regional election, entering a regional parliament for the first time. It supported the coalition regional government by Ciudadanos and the Popular Party. With this result, Vox obtained a first seat in the Senate, which was taken by Francisco José Alcaraz.The party obtained 10.26% of votes in the April 2019 general election, electing 24 Deputies and entering the Congress of Deputies for the first time. Later, the party entered the European Parliament for the first time with 6.2% of the votes and three Eurodeputies, which after Brexit became four. After the election, the party joined the European Conservatives and Reformists group and the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, having declined the invitation to join the Identity and Democracy group. In the second general election of the year in November, Vox came third and increased its number of deputies from 24 to 52. It was the most-voted party in the Region of Murcia and the autonomous city of Ceuta.
COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021)
At the beginning of 2020, during the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Vox called for travel restrictions between China and Spain, and later between Italy and Spain, to safeguard against the "Chinese virus". At that time the epidemic was already in full swing in those countries, but it was prior to any COVID cases being officially confirmed within Spain in significant numbers. That position found no support among other parties, and it was criticized as xenophobic rhetoric. The party claims that serious counter-COVID measures were deliberately delayed in Spain by the government, which hid the information and downplayed known risks to allow for mass public events on International Women's Day to take place, as these events were important for the left wing agenda of the newly formed coalition government of PSOE and UP. At the same time, Vox went forward with their own global party conference on 8 March in Vistalegre, where party supporters from all parts of Spain were invited. The conference resulted in numerous cases of COVID infection, including confirmed cases of COVID transmission between members of Vox leadership. This fact was often brought up by Vox opponents to criticize Vox attitude towards COVID situation in Spain.During the anti-COVID lockdown and follow-up restrictions, Vox routinely criticized government measures as inefficient, partisan, and partially unconstitutional. In April 2020 the party appealed to the Constitutional Court of Spain against the first State of Alarm declared by the government. In October 2020, Vox's parliamentary group at the Congress of Deputies tabled a motion of no confidence against the current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, bringing Santiago Abascal as alternative candidate. The motion failed to gain any support among the other parliamentary groups, gathering 52 'yes' votes and 298 'no' votes. In November 2020 Vox appealed to the Constitutional Court of Spain against the second State of Alarm declared by the government.
In the face of the 2020 United States presidential election, Vox was fully supportive of President Donald Trump's candidacy, even tweeting from its official account that Joe Biden was the preferred candidate of "El País, Podemos, Otegi, Maduro, China, Iran and pedophiles", which according to the international news agency EFE was echoing QAnon conspiracy theories. Vox took part in the 2021 CPAC conference and refused to acknowledge Biden's victory.
At the beginning of 2021, Vox's abstention was instrumental in securing European COVID-recovery funds on Socialist terms. Many Vox supporters considered this as the "largest error in Vox's history".
During 2020 and 2021 electoral campaigns for regional elections in the Basque Country, Catalonia, and the Community of Madrid multiple legal electoral events of Vox were physically attacked by radical political opponents on the premises of "Vox's legitimate electoral events in some regions being provocative acts". The view of the events as provocations was endorsed by high ranking UP members, including their speaker Pablo Echenique, and their leader, the Second Deputy Prime Minister of Spain at the time, Pablo Iglesias.
On 14 July 2021, in response to the Vox's appeal the previous year, the Constitutional Court of Spain declared by a narrow majority that the first anti-COVID State of Alarm was unconstitutional in the part of suppressing the freedom of movement established by the Article 19 of the Constitution. In October 2021 the Constitutional Court of Spain supported two other appeals by Vox, and declared unconstitutional the closing down of Spanish Parliament and Senate in the beginning of pandemic, and the second State of Alarm. As reported on 22 October 2021, the Government of Spain ordered all fines collected in relation to the first State of Alarm to be returned to citizens.
Entering regional governments (2022–2023)
On 13 February 2022, Vox came third in the 2022 Castilian-Leonese regional election, raising its representation from 1 up to 13 seats, and becoming the key player for the rival People's Party, who won the elections, to form a government. Following this election result, and an unfolding leadership crisis in PP, Vox for the first time was recognized as the Spain's second political force, according to some opinion polls for the next general elections. In March 2022, it was announced that Vox would form government with the PP in Castile and León, taking three of ten ministerial positions including vice president for regional leader Juan García-Gallardo. Vox member Carlos Pollán was elected President of the Cortes of Castile and León, the position of speaker. This represents the first participation of Vox in any regional government.On 19 June 2022, Vox came third in the 2022 Andalusian regional elections. With Macarena Olona as the leading candidate, the party improved over the previous regional elections, gaining about 100,000 more votes, and two more seats in the Parliament of Andalusia, but failed short of the expectations to achieve significantly better results and become the key to the new regional government. In the aftermath of elections, despite initial promises to stay and lead Vox's opposition group in Andalusia, on 29 July 2022, Olona announced her decision to resign and left politics due to unnamed "medical reasons".
In March 2023, Vox, for the second time, tabled a motion of no confidence against the government of Pedro Sánchez, with Ramón Tamames as alternative, independent candidate. The motion failed with 53 votes in favour, 201 votes against, 91 abstentions, and four absentees.
In May 2023, local and regional elections were held in Spain. Vox, as the minor partner, formed the government with the PP in the Valencian Community, though the PP ordered that Vox's lead candidate Carlos Flores would not take part in the government, due to his 2002 conviction for harassment of his ex-wife. After protracted negotiations, Vox also joined PP governments in Extremadura and Aragon. Despite not forming the government, Vox was awarded the speaker's role in the Parliament of the Balearic Islands in exchange for abstaining on the vote and thereby allowing a PP government. Again as the smaller of the two parties, Vox formed local governments with the PP in cities such as Elche, Toledo, Valladolid, Guadalajara and Burgos.