PP-Vox’s Valencia takeover and Yolanda’s ruthlessness - Spanish 2023 election

Whenever Vox need to discriminate in favour of Spaniards against businesses or landlords, they bottle it.

PP-Vox take over Valencia

So the news is out that PP and Vox have agreed a pact to run the community of Valencia, deposing the PSOE led coalition. A result of a fractured Left wing vote, those who oppose Vox will now be given extra motivation as they have seen what happens when they split their vote. Now, as a conservative website perhaps we should be happy with this but the first round of policies put forward by Vox (who will hold the ministries of Justice, Agriculture and Culture) are a predictable mix of what I am going to call ‘plastic patriotism’.

As noted in El Pais, the main priorities are not to discriminate in favour of Spanish people but to reduce the tourist tax on flats and set up an office to get rid of “la ocupación illegal” (squatters). However, absolutely zero notice is being paid to the many Spanish unable to buy a house or made homeless as flats are hoovered up by landlords to rent to tourists. “Freedom” is the cry, but not for Spanish people who want to raise families, but landlords and housing investors (for what could be more Spanish than American multinationals driving Spanish people out of their own cities). It’s a shame, Spain really does need a conservative party but alas that’s why I call it plastic patriotism - because whenever Vox need to discriminate in favour of Spaniards against businesses or landlords, they bottle it.

On the plus side for PSOE, they are getting what they wanted: the image of Vox propping up PP. PSOE will be praying that the images of PP saddling up with Vox motivates enough people to vote either for them or the wider Left wing bloc.

Yolanda puts her foot down, Irene Montero out

On the other side of the fence, Sumar leader and new Queen of the Left Yolanda Diaz has put her foot down by excluding Podemos congress member Irene Montero from their joint list for the next election. For all the talk of Yolanda being a friendlier face, she is still prepared to be as ruthless as anyone else to win.

Why is Irene Montero being excluded? Well, Irene was the catalyst of a law 'solo sí es sí' introduced in October 2022. The law was designed to be a landmark moment against gender violence and something Podemos could hang their hat on at a future election. Unfortunately, it led to many people convicted of crimes having their sentences reduced as minimum sentences meant that some prisoners convicted of crimes had served more than the new law mandated and therefore won appeals to leave prison. Some of the cases involve ex teachers and it rightly has become poisonous to be associated with it, so Irene would, in Yolanda’s eyes, cost votes.

On the other hand, Yolanda Diaz as Minister of Labour can point to her success in delivering a high employment rate, the transition of many jobs from the permanent insecurity of temporary contracts to ‘índefinido’ (permanent) and a high public approval rating (relative to many others). It’s ruthless but a necessary move if Sumar is to distance itself from the worst aspects of student politics in Podemos for the more adult reforms Yolanda introduced.

The ‘real’ danger

And finally, away from the campaign, the terrible incident in France horrified many, but whilst the children were still fighting for their life, Spanish commentator Susanna Griso was focussed on the real danger: more votes for Le Pen.

It is an all too common narrative sophistry that when these avoidable tragedies happen (avoidable because you can just not import these people), the focus is desperately switched to the consequences of how it hurts immigrants (xenophobic backlash, etc).

It’s always worth saying that the real danger is not the proles voting Le Pen, but importing people (or allowing people to remain) who stab your citizens.

One day, it might sink into the heads of people like Susanna that maybe, just maybe, if people weren’t now forced to live in fear due to the insane policy of importing unlimited numbers of people from alien and incompatible cultures, people might not be voting for the “Far Right” parties that are (seemingly) the only ones prepared to stop it.