The leaders of the far-left Spanish Podemos party celebrated on Saturday the “victory” of the mass amnesty for around half a million illegals and hailed the achievement as a step toward the “replacement” of right-wing Spaniards.
Appearing at a campaign event in Zaragoza, Podemos Secretary General Ione Belarra and the party’s leading Member of the European Parliament, Irene Montero, openly embraced the project of demographic displacement as an electoral strategy.
They explained that this week’s deal brokered with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to grant amnesty to over 500,000 illegals was merely the first step and that the ultimate goal was to either grant them citizenship or to change the law to allow for migrants to vote in national elections, El Mundo reported.
Party leader Belarra compared the battle to allow migrants to vote to the women’s suffrage movement, saying that Spain has a “racist, property-based” voting system and that her party will “fight for migrants’ right to vote. If you live here, you have to have the right to vote here.”
While conservative and populist opponents of the amnesty have criticised the left for seeking to manipulate the polity to their own aims, Podemos MEP Irene Montero openly admitted as much, but claimed that it was righteous to replace her fellow countrymen.
“I wish for replacement theory, I wish we could sweep this country of fascists and racists with migrants, with working people,” she said.
“Of course, I want there to be replacement: replacement of fascists, replacement of racists, replacement of freeloaders, and that we can do it with working people, whatever their skin colour may be.”
Montero, who is widely expected to represent Podemos as a prime ministerial candidate in the 2027 general election, also admitted that the amnesty of the illegal migrants is ultimately intended to see them become voters.
“Of course, we want them to vote. We’ve obtained papers, regularisation now, and now we’re going for citizenship or to change the law so they can vote, of course,” the far leftist MEP said.
While the ‘Great Replacement’ has long been downplayed as a conspiracy theory by the legacy media, it has increasingly become a rallying cry for far-left politicians in Europe. Indeed, last month, French former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon also openly embraced the term, while boasting that around one in four French citizens has at least one foreign-born grandparent.
Responding to Montero, the leader of the anti-mass migration VOX party, Santiago Abascal said: “This is [Prime Minister] Sánchez’s plan. He disguises it more. But this is the plan of Sánchez and of Brussels. And it is being carried out there with the support of the European PP [People’s Party]. WE ARE NOT GOING TO ALLOW IT.”
Meanwhile, the leader of the centre-right People’s Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has called on Brussels to intervene to stop Madrid’s amnesty programme, arguing that due to the internal open borders of the Schengen zone, the mass regularisation of illegals would directly impact the other 26 member states. However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her European People’s Party allies have reportedly said that the decision will be left up to the Spanish government.
Critics have also warned that the amnesty could result in potentially millions more arrivals in Spain, through the familial chain migration process and by incentivising more illegals to enter on the hope of another future amnesty.
The mooted amnesty may prove to be a critical issue in the upcoming 2027 general election. According to a survey this week from Sigma Dos, VOX is projected to win 17.8 per cent of the vote, up from 12.3 per cent in 2023. The centre-right PP would win 32.4 per cent, slightly down from the 33.1 per cent they won three years ago. The combined strength of the two right-wing parties would be enough to control parliament and form a coalition government.
It remains to be seen if the PP will commit to overturning the amnesty if elected next year. However, party leader Feijóo said on Saturday: “The massive regularisation by the Government will put pressure on public services, strain the housing market, and create coexistence problems. Solidarity without control is an intolerable political negligence.”
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