Spain: VOX and PP Announce Senate Race Alliance to Defeat Far-left

Spain’s anti-mass migration VOX party and the center-right People’s Party (PP) on Monday announced a new electoral agreement to stop running against each other in several Senate races during the upcoming November 29 snap elections.

The agreement, both parties detailed, aims to increase the odds of a greater right-wing majority at the upper house of the Spanish Congress that can stop the advancement of the far-left in Spain and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

VOX pointed out that the organization and the People’s party are indeed very different political organizations with different speeches — but nevertheless two parties that coincide in the need to expel Sánchez’s “criminal organization” from the nation’s institutions.

In a video published on social media, VOX’s secretary general Ignacio Garrica stressed upon the importance of the upcoming snap election and warned that Sánchez “knows it and will try to stay in power one way or the other” through what he described as the Prime Minister’s “attempt to assault all institutions with the help of extremists and radicals,” including the Senate.

In that sense, Garrica announced that as a sign of good gesture, VOX will withdraw Senate candidacies in six constituencies and present a single candidate in 14 other constituencies, with the hope that the rest of the current Spanish opposition reciprocates the gesture in kind. No Lower House candidacies will be withdrawn by VOX.

“We’ve always said this, but it’s no secret that we agree on the need to expel Sánchez’s criminal organization from all institutions. And that is what should be our focus and concern,” Garrica said.

Miguel Tellado, the secretary general of the People’s Party, confirmed that it will collaborate with VOX’s agreement and, in return, will withdraw Senate candidacies in three constituencies. In the six constituencies that the anti-mass migration will withdraw its candidates, the PP will instead present six independent candidates proposed by VOX. Per El Español, the center-right party detailed that, as per the terms of the agreement, VOX will present a single candidate n 14 Spanish provinces.

“Here, PP voters will be able to choose any three PP candidates; and Vox supporters will be able to choose the Vox candidate and two others from the PP,” Tellado reportedly explained.

Tellado emphasized that reaching an understanding between both groups is in the best interests of Spain and not in the interests of an individual person, as ending the advance of the Spanish far-left is a far more important goal, which both sides agreed.

“We welcome the fact that there is a common ground to prevent the far left from taking over the Senate, where the People’s Party will withdraw its candidates in Gerona, Tarragona, and Guipúzcoa,” the VOX party celebrated in a follow-up social media post.

Unnamed sources with knowledge of the inner details of the alliance affirmed to Europapress that VOX and the PP’s leadership will help them collectively secure anywhere between 125 to 140 Senate seats out of the available 209 in the upcoming snap November — which could lead to a three-fifths right-wing majority at the Senate.

Prime Minister Sánchez, for his part, criticized the new VOX-PP alliance at the Senate race by claiming that they are both “the same.” Sánchez, in a social media video, cited a research from neuroscientist Patrick Mineault which states that some individuals have difficulty distinguishing between shades of green and blue — referencing VOX and PP’s party colors.

“For years, they’ve tried to make us believe that they stood for very different agendas. But both their words and their actions make it very clear. They say the same things, vote the same way, and govern together,” Sánchez said in the video.

“And now they’re even presenting joint slates for the Senate. Two colors, but the same agenda of regression. So the choice is yours,” he continued. “Either Spain moves forward, or the past moves forward.”

VOX’s leader, Santiago Abascal, responded to Sánchez’s claims that both parties are the “same” during a Tuesday morning interview. Abascal, using “Sánchez’s own logic,” the Prime Minister is therefore the “same” as the Basque separatist Sortu party, Hamas, and other far-left and extremist organizations.

In the same interview, Abascal stressed upon the urgent need to have a right-wing majority at the Spanish Senate, accusing the nation’s far-left forces to try to gain a majority at the upper house to “seize” the Senate and “kidnap” the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal. As per the Spanish constitution, a three-fifths majority at the Senate is required to appoint four of the twelve Justices that compose the nation’s top court.