1. The claudication. What interests Vox more, forcing elections in the Valencian Community or agreeing with the PP to replace Mazón? This is the question that will determine the immediate future of the Spanish right. Politics requires determination and a low profile ends up paying off. Among other things because it only serves to give the opponent space. Spending all your energy to demonize Pedro Sánchez has exposed Feijóo, a leader without precise attributes. The PP has come to believe that pinching Sánchez every day would ultimately sink him. And for now, the president continues, the right is very shaken by the Valencian crisis. So much so that Feijóo felt forced to take the step he had until now tried to avoid: openly asking for help from the neo-fascist right of Vox.
It’s no longer a supposition, it’s a reality. The PP joins the European right that has broken the taboo of collaboration with fascism and proposes to give recognition to the far right. Mazón resigned a year late. And Feijóo, who, against the most basic common sense, failed to force him to leave when tragedy struck, shakes off any reservations against Vox’s radicalism and surrenders to Abascal. Therefore, the Valencia crisis is not only a failure of the PP, an episode in the history of political ignominy, but a triumph for Vox, which now has the floor with the recognition of Feijóo, who was incapable of seeking other paths that did not require a move to the far right.
With more democratic sensitivity, the PP would have had the opportunity to show ambition and disconcerte the PSOE by suggesting to Sánchez the possibility of opting for an agreement between the two parties to straighten out the Valencian country, rather than giving in to the far right. It would have put the Spanish president in difficulty and his image would have taken a nosedive. But the body was stronger than the head and chose to forgive fascism.
Perhaps the latest polls, which reveal an increase in votes for Vox, especially among young people, serve as an alibi. In any case, Abascal has seen the path clear and is setting the flags in motion. Government or elections? For now he has already put his demands on the table: stop the green pact and put the spotlight on immigration. The far right accelerates, aware that it has nothing to lose in either option. If the PP accepts its conditions, it has already achieved victory: the validation of its agenda. And if not, you have legitimate reasons to think that early elections may have a payoff. It is the path in which Feijóo has led the PP: Vox is legitimized, the taboo of fascism falls and the PP is a little more cornered. Abascal will decide what it deems most convenient to turn right.
2. The imposition. We are in a moment in which the fights on the right offer delirious spectacles. Mazón is no longer alone, Alberto González Amador, Ayuso’s boyfriend, with several judicial proceedings in tow, adheres to the pitiful speech of personal destruction: “They destroyed my life: either I leave Spain or I commit suicide”, a pathetic show of escape from reality when his backpack is loaded with matters under judicial investigation. Given the difficulty of refuting complaints, engaging in vanity in the form of drama shifted the staff’s gaze.
This anecdote of anxiety, of a PP that believed itself to be stronger than it turned out to be, becomes the protagonist of the public scene when a promising memoir by Juan Carlos I comes out in France. In it, a warning to his son: “Do not doubt that you have inherited a political system that I built. You can exclude me on a personal and financial level, but you cannot refuse the institutional legacy in which you grew up.” A way to put aside the personal whims and miseries that have discolored his image, placing himself as a reference for the regime, for having been able to make “those reforms that Carrero would not have allowed me”, as he told me on one occasion.
Let’s not lose sight of reality: the reactionary turn of the right is underway, with the PP handed over to Vox. Will this be Feijóo’s last failure? Who will benefit from this bet? Will Abascal take the lead? Will Pedro Sánchez be able to find air to recover space in the face of the PP’s surrender? At this moment it is disturbing to see how lies populate the communication space.
