Introduction & Updates in National Landscape
November is an important month for the extreme right in Spain, with two important anniversaries, those of the deaths of the dictator Francisco Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The acts in his honor have been held despite the fact that the Democratic Memory Law, which prohibits them, has already entered into force.
The month has also been marked by convulsions within Vox, with more and more officials presenting their resignation and denouncing the lack of internal democracy in the party, and by the proposal by the Government to repeal the crime of secession for which they were condemned the leaders of the Catalan process, which has aroused the anger of far-right parties and groups.
Updates in the National Landscape The month has started with two important milestones for the far right. On the one hand, on November 3, the exhumation of Queipo de LLano, a Francoist general with a large number of murder victims —45,000 executions are attributed to him— and rape —behind his back in Andalusia, of the basilica of La Macarena, was carried out. In sevilla. The act, which responds to the Democratic Memory Law, which came into force the previous month, has led to the protest of extreme right-wing groups and the family. Also the applause of the historical memory groups.
A day later, Macarena Olona, a former Vox candidate for the Andalusian elections and now outside the far-right party, presented her new foundation, Latin American Equality, based in Panama and financed by the Spanish businessman Roberto Rollón García. Already on October 18, it had been represented in Panama, with an anti-feminist speech. Its first objective is to collect 500 signatures to present a popular legislative initiative in Spain to repeal gender laws, following in the wake of Vox, which at its September congress will also launch another form of political participation, although not binding, popular consultations. https://www.infolibre.es/politica/macarena-olona-fortalece-panama-empresario-ligado-sociedad-debe-millon-hacienda-espanola11351711.html https://www.publico.es/politica/olona-lanza-fundacion-antifeminista-intencion-volver-al-congreso.html
Olona has also been the protagonist of an interview with the newspaper El País in which she denounces the “lack of democracy” within Vox as the reason for his departure from the party and in which he describes the praises of Hitler that are made in Abascal’s party. https://elpais.com/espana/2022-11-07/olona-mi-salida-afloro-las-criticas-por-falta-de-democracia-interna-y-de-respeto-en-vox.html
It has not been the only internal problem that Vox has faced this month. In Vega Baja, south of Alicante, the Vox coordinator has also resigned accusing the lack of democracy in the party and has announced that another 50 positions in the province will also resign shortly. https://aldescubierto.org/2022/11/24/dimite-el-coordinador-de-vox-en-la-vega-baja-con-duras-criticas-al-partido-y-anunciando-mas-de-50-dimisiones/
On the contrary, in Castilla y León, the only autonomous community in which Vox is part of the government, the first consequences of the presence of the far-right party have begun to be seen, with the suppression of aid for women victims of gender violence. https://www.eldiario.es/castilla-y-leon/politica/vox-borra-violencia-genero-castilla-leon-declaraciones-incendiarias-suprimir-ayudas-insercion-laboral-victimas19738062.html
On those same days, senior Vox officials went to Ceuta to hold a meeting called Frontera Sur. In it, Ignacio Garriga, Javier Ortega Smith, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, Jorge Buxadé and Rocío de Meer focused, as usual, on the closure of borders, even though they are already closed in southern Spain, and the relationship between immigration and crime. One of the guests at the conference was Samuel Vázquez, president of the Una Policía para el Siglo XXI association. Vázque was one of the speakers who accompanied the former Valencian police commissioner Ricardo Ferris on October 14 at an event organized by Vox and the Denaes Foundation, and for which Ferris was sanctioned by the Ministry of the Interior and removed from his position in the Police for giving false information to link crime with irregular immigration. The Prosecutor’s Office has also announced that it will investigate whether Ferris’s statements are the subject of a crime. The relationship between the police officer and Vox is close. On October 7, he was invited to appear in the Madrid Assembly, at the request of the far-right party to talk about security. After the October event with Ferris, Vázquez continued his tour with Vox by participating in the Frontera Sur event, also convened by Vox and the European Conservative and Reform Party. “From Una Policía para el Siglo XXI we thank Frontera Sur and Vox for the invitation and the opportunity to expose how, by renouncing to defend our borders, we are digging the grave of the West and condemning our children to a future of machete blows and gang rapes. ”, indicates the association that Vázquez presides over on social networks. https://twitter.com/vox_es/status/1584956512862351361
On November 11, the far-right party España 2000 attended a rally called by the Jupol police union in support of Ferris, who during the event called to “fight” against the “undignified” government. Several media outlets point out that Vox is considering presenting Ferris as the party’s candidate in Valencia. https://twitter.com/E2000Valencia/status/1589622618348748801 https://www.eldiario.es/comunitat-valenciana/policia-cesado-difundir-bulos-xenofobos-acto-vox-llama-luchar-gobierno-indigno1_9703837.html
At the legislative level, the proposal by the Government of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, with the support of the Catalan party ERC regarding the repeal of the crime of sedition for which the leaders of the Procés were convicted for calling a popular consultation on the independence of Catalonia , has been the main battlefront of the extreme right, which has branded the proposal as “treason.” “We have to see how the traitor Sánchez kneels again before the enemies of Spain so that they get off scot-free and advance in their federal Spain,” said Ignacio Garriga, general secretary of Vox in Congress. https://twitter.com/VOX_Congreso/status/1592134360026976256
Other far-right groups, such as Hacer Nación, maintain a discourse similar to that of Vox, branding Catalans who advocate independence as “enemies”, following the repeal proposal. https://twitter.com/HacerNacion/status/1590830518618443776
Santiago Abascal presented the Vox plan against the proposal, which involves denouncing the legislative reform in the courts, calling a referendum to outlaw the separatist political parties and calling for demonstrations on November 19 and 27. https://twitter.com/vox_es/status/1592124339809554433
The hatred of everything Catalan on the part of the extreme right has also caused a Catalan teacher in Mallorca to be the target of death threats by sympathizers of extreme right groups. https://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2022/11/26/ultraderecha-amenaza-muerte-profesora-salle-79151996.html
Meanwhile, in Madrid, the Popular Party responded to the new Law of Democratic Memory with the inauguration of a monument to the Legion, a military body created by Millán Astray, a well-known position in the Franco regime, and related to the colonialist wars before the dictatorship and, during the civil war, for his savagery against the defenders of democracy. On November 9, the mayor of Madrid, José Martínez-Almeida, inaugurated the statue in a ceremony in which Vox had more prominence, despite the fact that the PP politician gave a speech extolling Astray. https://www.eldiario.es/madrid/almeida-homenajea-millan-astray-inauguracion-monumento-legion19693861.html
The month of November in Spain is also marked by a mythical date for the extreme right, November 20, the anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco (1975) and José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1936), founder of La Falange. Despite the entry into force of the Democratic Memory Law, which punishes acts that extol the Franco dictatorship, far-right parties and groups celebrated the date with events, especially in Madrid, with a march to the Valley of the Fallen, and in Alicante, in whose prison Primo de Rivera died. https://twitter.com/MiquelR/status/1594300722337951746 https://twitter.com/eldiarioes/status/1594073026227687427 https://twitter.com/MiquelR/status/1596468063301664769
In the courts, November has been marked by the first permission to leave prison for the neo-Nazi convicted of the murder of the anti-fascist Carlos Palomino on the same weekend that celebrates the anniversary of his death. https://www.lamarea.com/2022/11/09/el-neonazi-que-asesino-a-carlos-palomino-obtiene-su-primer-permiso/
Also for the first conviction of a person for spreading fake news. Specifically, the convicted person is a Civil Guard agent who spread hoaxes about migrants on social networks, in which he also shared far-right messages and symbols. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/fake-news/guardia-civil-primer-condenado-difundir-fake-news-redes-sociales
Another character from the extreme right has also been the protagonist, but not because he has been accused. In November it became known that the legal defense of Laura Borrás, a Catalan politician accused of corruption, had hired Emilio Hellín as an expert, sentenced to 43 years in prison for the murder, in 1980, of the student Yolanda González, together with other members of the New Force Party. Hellín, who fled to Paraguay, who barely served 12 years in prison, has worked on different occasions as a specialist expert for the National Police and the Civil Guard. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/extrema-derecha/familia-yolanda-contratacion-emilio-hellin-nos-prometieron-que-no-volveria-a-ocurrir
Another name of the extreme right that has been the protagonist is that of Cristina Seguí, co-founder of Vox, which the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating for publicly exposing data on underage women who have suffered rape. https://www.elplural.com/sociedad/tribunales/fiscalia-denuncia-cristina-segui-exponer-publicamente-varias-menores-violadas_301731102
Transnational Activities & Group Interactions
At the international level, Vox has taken advantage of COP27 to make international propaganda with a topic that has nothing to do with the environment. Through Foro Madrid, an organization created by Fundación Disenso, founded by Vox, they send a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron recriminating having met with Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro. The letter is signed by more than 60 political personalities from 19 countries, among them, of course, the Argentine Javier Milei, or the Italian Carlo Fodanza, from Fratelli d’Italia. https://twitter.com/voxes/status/1590811746629210112 https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2022-11-10/vox-aliados-fundacion-disenso-exigen-disculpa-macron-blanquear-maduro-cop273520838/
It has also continued to strengthen its relationship with the Polish government. At the end of November, Abascal met with Jaroslaw Kaczyński and the country’s prime minister in Warsaw to discuss borders, illegal immigration and the war in Ukraine. “Poland’s border was assaulted by thousands of illegal African and Arab immigrants sent by Putin’s allies from Belarus,” the Vox president said on social media after his visit. https://twitter.com/SantiABASCAL/status/1597202573567864832 https://twitter.com/SantiABASCAL/status/1597296232111964161
Norberto Pico, head of the Spanish Falange of the JONS, has also strengthened ties with far-right organizations in other countries, participating as a speaker, via videoconference, in a congress called “Theory and azione political cattolica” held in Rome, organized by the organizations Italian Militia Christi and La Rete dei patrioti. https://youtu.be/9dIxHYvw3IA https://twitter.com/NorbertoPico/status/1597157574578966529
For his part, Manuel Andrino, head of La Falange, has participated in the national congress of the French organization Les Nationalistes, held in Lyon, with whom he claims to have been working together for more than 30 years. https://twitter.com/lafalange/status/1591819555286159361
Beyond Europe, Abascal has participated, also by videoconference, in the Conservative Political Action Conference held on November 18 in Mexico, along with other well-known names from the world extreme right such as Steve Bannon or Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former Brazilian president. https://efe.com/mundo/mexico-acoge-la-cumbre-global-de-la-ultraderecha/