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Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Spanish party Vox, repeated a question to his rivals with acerbic intensity. “What is a woman?” he asked at a pre-election debate. For Abaskar, an ultra-conservative nationalist who is likely to face a power-sharing crisis in this weekend’s election, it was a way to fuse two of Box’s trademarks: culture wars over gender and vigilance over security.
“If a man who identifies as a woman thinks he is a woman, you are wrong. You are so wrong and you are endangering women.” In his sights was the Transgender Rights Act passed by the socialist-led Indian government. Pedro SanchezFor Abascal, it symbolizes the prime minister’s arrogant isolation from most voters.
Vox, the 47-year-old party leader with a handsome beard, combines hellfire laughter and amiable banter during the campaign to sell himself as a politician who understands his people. Since taking power in 2014, he has taken the party from obscurity to a stage of “shy” voter growth to a party whose supporters are proud to announce their support. Box, the third most popular party in May’s local elections, is trying to replicate that feat.
Polls show Sunday’s winner is the conservative National Party. Abascal derides it as a corrupt, spineless part of Spain’s now-defunct two-party system. Party leader Alberto Nunez-Feijo has said he wants to avoid a coalition, but it will likely need the support of the Boxes parliament to secure the necessary majority to win office. So Spain asks, “What does Abascal want?”
One goal is to repeal transgender bills and laws on gender-based violence that “betray and kill women,” according to Abascal. But his commitment to change is much more far-reaching. He dismisses fears about rising temperatures as follows:climate fanaticism“I want to burn more fossil fuels. Box also calls for a naval blockade on migrant ships and warns of “Muslim aggression” in its anti-immigrant campaign. He wants to solidify LGBT+ rights, expand access to abortion, and repeal laws that decriminalize euthanasia.
But the most consistent theme in Abascal’s life is his animosity towards the separatists seeking secession from Spain. Born in Bilbao in 1976, he grew up in the Basque Country during the darkest years of Eta’s violent struggle for independence. His father was a staunch critic of terrorist groups, and his family was under constant threat. The family clothing store in Amrio was repeatedly vandalized and set on fire.
“Every time we were attacked, we went to the press instead of staying silent because it had to be condemned. And the more we kept silent, the more they attacked us,” he once said.
Abaskar recalled seeing bodyguards check the family’s car for explosives before they left home. When Eta was nine years old, he shot and killed a friend of his father, a local mailman. “My life is now going into politics,” he said.
He studied sociology at university and criticized nationalism and the use of mythology, including Basque. In his doctoral dissertation, he quoted the philosopher Karl Popper, saying that nationalism “flavors our tribal instincts, passions and prejudices.”
“Everything he criticized about Basque nationalism is replicated in Spanish nationalism,” says Miguel González, author of the book. Vox Co., Ltd., a book about parties. “Either he’s a cynic, or he has a memory of a goldfish.”
Abascal was part of a group that joined the party but left the party to found Vox in 2013, disgusted by then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s refusal to take a tough stance against corruption and separatists. Another Vox founder, Jose Luis González Quiros, said his original intention was to encourage change at PP. But when Abaskar came to power, he took the party in a different direction.
“Abascal is a shrewd and ambitious man,” says González Quiros. “He saw an opportunity in the fact that the right had neglected a segment of the population and set himself up to take advantage of it.”
To keep Vox alive, Abascal enlisted donations from hardline Catholic groups against abortion and same-sex marriage. The party’s breakthrough came in 2017, when Catalonia’s push for independence exploded over an unconstitutional referendum, anti-separatist movements surged across Spain, and voters flocked to the party.
Vox has its own internal faction. On economic policy, pro-market liberals disagree with protectionists and state interventionists.Several Voxysta Despite his backlash against the party being described as a return to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Mr. Abascal said there was a place within the party for “defenders of Franco’s work.”
Since the 2019 election, he has allowed border closures and Catholic-minded people to gain the upper hand. He tried to soften some harsh stances in his campaign, but Vox, which already holds power with PP in local government, abolished the environment and equality department and banned LGBT+ flags from public buildings.
How many votes Mr. Abascal gets on Sunday will determine whether he has to make concessions to rule with the PP at the national level, or whether Mr. Box enacts the law. When one voter urged him to “solve the problem” during a market visit, he replied: I’m not going to cheat you like other people. ”
