[SBSNews] Far-right party Vox has made big gains in Spain's latest election, and is predicted to win 53 seats in a hung parliament.Far-right Vox is projected to become the third-largest party in Spain's parliament after Sunday’s national election.
It made its debut in parliament as recently as April, marking the first time a far-right party won more than one seat since the country’s return to democracy in the 1970s.
An opinion poll published shortly after mainland voting ended pegged Vox at 56-59 seats in the 350-seat house, up from 24 in the previous election in April. The actual results could still be different as such early surveys are not always accurate, though most other recent ones had projected a similar outcome.
Founded in 2013 by former members of the mainstream conservative People's Party, Vox is anti-muslim, nationalist, anti-feminist, Eurosceptical, socially conservative, economically liberal, and staunchly pro-Spanish unity.
The global Left is... appalled ! The BBC ran a docu on them, their 'vile politics' and the 'defective mass psychology' behind their appeal. The name 'Trump' was used a lot.
It got its first foothold in office last December, winning 12 parliamentary seats in a regional election in Andalusia.
Vox is aligned with the broader populist movement that has also risen swiftly in other European countries, notably Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark and France.
Economically, Vox’s manifesto has been ultra-liberal: halving the highest income tax rate to 15 per cent, reducing corporate tax, and abolishing wealth and inheritance taxes. It also proposes to partially privatize Spain’s pension system.
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After a fourth national ballot in as many years and the second in less than seven months, the left-wing Socialists held on as the leading power in the national parliament. With 99.9% of the votes counted, the Socialists captured 120 seats, down three seats from the last election in April and still far from the absolute majority of 176 needed to form a government alone.
The far-right party led by 43-year-old Santiago Abascal, who speaks of "reconquering" Spain in terms that echo the medieval wars between Christian and Moorish forces, rocketed from 24 to 52 seats. That will make Vox the third leading party in the Congress of Deputies, giving it much more leverage in forming a government and crafting legislation.
With Sunday’s outcome, the mainstream conservative Popular Party rebounded from its previous debacle in the April vote to 88 seats from 66, a historic low. The far-left United We Can, which had rejected an offer to help the Socialists form a left-wing government over the summer, lost some ground to get 35 seats.
The night’s undisputed loser was the center-right Citizens party, which collapsed to 10 seats from 57 in April after its leader Albert Rivera refused to help the Socialists form a government and tried to copy some of Vox’s hard-line positions.
Sánchez’s chances of staying in power still hinges on ultimately winning over the United We Can party and several regional parties, a complicated maneuver that he has failed to pull off in recent months.
The Socialists took a hit in the country’s Senate, losing their absolute majority of 133 seats in the upper parliamentary chamber amid the significant conservative inroads.
The three Catalan separatist parties won a combined 23 seats on Sunday.