Santiago Abascal has opened Vox’s election campaign in Huesca this Thursday with a speech focused on the rising cost of living, immigration, and the distribution of public aid. "We have all become poorer", the president of the party has said, blaming Pedro Sánchez’s government for the loss of purchasing power of Spanish families and asserting the "national priority" as one of the principles of his political project for the general elections on 29 November.
Before about 1,000 people, according to figures provided by Vox, Abascal has listed some of the economic difficulties that, in his view, Spanish households are facing. The price of the grocery basket, school expenses, car maintenance, or the cost of medical insurance have served the leader to illustrate the deterioration of living conditions that he attributes to the Executive.
The event included the participation of the vice president of the Government of Aragón, Alejandro Nolasco, and of Vox’s top candidate for Congress for Huesca, Ester Blanco. The organization says that another 300 people were left outside the venue, so Abascal went out to greet them and apologize for not being able to access the rally.
Abascal uses the case of a sick girl to defend the "national priority"
One of the central moments of his address came when the Vox leader recounted meeting a family that had handed him a letter about Sofía’s situation, a three-year-old girl from Huesca who suffers from a serious illness.
As he explained, her family faces economic difficulties related to medical treatment and the trips necessary to receive healthcare. Abascal has used that case to question the government’s budgetary priorities and to set the family’s needs against public spending earmarked for the care of migrant people.
"How is it possible that there is a Spanish family that is going through these difficulties and does not receive public aid while we are seeing every day, right now, that a new provision for upkeep has been approved for all those who entered illegally in Ceuta?", he denounced.
The leader has assured that he will keep the situation of the minor in mind. "I’m not going to forget Sofía or that family," he promised.
From that account, he has defended the concept of "national priority", one of Vox’s main proposals regarding access to benefits and public services.
"That is national priority. That is defending your own people," he has said. And he has rejected that his position responds to a feeling contrary to foreigners: "It is not hatred of foreigners, not hatred of those from outside, not rejection of any kind. It is love for those within, it is love for the people in need".
The intervention has not included documentation that would allow verifying the administrative situation of the aid requested by the family, nor the specific terms of the budget item mentioned by Abascal. His comparison has taken place within the context of defending Vox’s migration and social proposals.
Vox brings "national priority" to its electoral program for the 29N
Abascal’s statements coincide with the publication of Vox’s electoral program for the 29N, which expressly includes the preference of Spaniards in accessing certain benefits and public services.
Among its proposals are giving priority to Spanish citizens in public housing, nursery school places, dining hall grants, transport aid, and social benefits. It also contemplates withdrawing social aid from foreigners in an irregular situation and restricting their access to public healthcare, except in cases of serious urgency.
The party includes these measures among the main commitments of its campaign, along with reducing taxes, economic deregulation, and what it calls "remigration", a concept with which it proposes to promote the return or expulsion of certain groups of foreigners.
Abascal questions the Ministry of Equality
During the rally, the leader of Vox has also attacked the Ministry of Equality, whose disappearance his party defends.
"If we come to power, the UCO will never enter the Ministry of Equality," he has said, referring to the Central Operational Unit of the Guardia Civil. With that statement, he has insisted that he considers it unnecessary to maintain a specific department for these policies.
"What needs to be done is to respect equality in the rules, in the budgets, and in everything," he has defended.
Vox’s program includes the repeal of gender laws and their replacement with other rules to protect victims of violence, within a broader review of equality policies developed over the last few years.
Nolasco denounces the arrival of migrants to Aragón without information from the central Government
Migration policy has also centered Alejandro Nolasco’s intervention, vice president of the Government of Aragón and a Vox leader, who has denounced the arrival of more than half a hundred migrant people to the community in the last few hours.
As he has stated, the central Executive had not previously informed the regional Government about those transfers, an action he has described as “obscurantism”.
“They have not even contacted the Government of Aragón,” Nolasco criticized.
For her part, the candidate for Congress for Huesca, Ester Blanco, has presented Abascal as the leader capable of taking Vox’s proposals to the Government of Spain.
“Tonight we are not here to talk about sowing. We are here because the time for harvest has come,” she said, using a metaphor about the political work carried out by the party over the last few years.
Abascal calls for a “gigantic mobilization” before the 29N
In the final stretch of his speech, Abascal called for a “gigantic mobilization of the Spanish” for the elections of November 29 and asked his supporters to try to convince other voters over the next two weeks.
The Huesca event has been the last big pre-campaign appointment of the Vox leader, who will officially kick off his campaign this Friday, November 13, in Colón Square in Madrid, at 20:00. The party will compete in the election under the slogan “It’s common sense”, with immigration, the economy, and public aid among its main electoral issues.