The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has held the PP and PSOE responsible this Monday for promoting “lies”, “a dirty war” and “a demonization” against his party, and has admitted the “difficulty” of “negotiating” and closing government agreements in Extremadura and Aragon with the 'popular ones'.
In an appearance without a question round, Abascal has denounced a “permanent attack” against Vox with the aim, as he has suggested, of wearing it down in the different electoral processes in Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and Leon and Andalusia and frustrating conversations for future pacts.
In this context, he has referred to the internal crisis opened after the expulsion of Javier Ortega Smith and the precautionary expulsion of the former leader of Vox in Murcia, José Ángel Antelo, although without expressly naming them.
Abascal has spoken of “lies that do not cease” and “insinuations of all kinds, including of corruption,” which, he said, come from both the PP and the PSOE. “Precisely the two political forces that have perpetrated the worst corruptions and have created corruption structures for many decades,” he remarked, recalling that his party has no cases of this type in the courts and that, “on the other hand, it receives the attack of all those who should be silent.”
At this point, the leader of Vox has lashed out against “the criminal Government” of Pedro Sánchez, whom he has defined as “a tyrant's apprentice capable of using anything to divert attention, from embracing a war to enjoying it”. At the same time, he has criticized the PP, whom he has described as a “blue weathervane, capable of saying one thing and the opposite depending on the territory they are treading on”.
Clash with the PP over regional agreements
Given this scenario, Abascal has reiterated the “difficulty” in “carrying forward and bringing to a successful conclusion negotiations” aimed at forming regional coalition governments with the PP after the elections in Extremadura and Aragon, in which Vox doubled its representation and now demands presence in the executives.
He has blamed the PP for the lack of progress because, as he has indicated, “he prefers pacts with the PNV and with the PSOE” rather than with Vox. Furthermore, he has again accused the 'populars' of connivance with the socialists, relying on the agreements that both formations have closed for the composition of the Court of Accounts, the distribution of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) or the configuration of different parliamentary commissions.
Abascal has insisted that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has erred with his strategy of calling elections in Extremadura and Aragon to try to get rid of Vox. “After this marathon that will end this Sunday we can conclude that Feijóo has made a serious mistake by preventing agreements from being reached with Vox in Extremadura and Aragon similar to those in the Valencian Community,” he stressed.
In his opinion, the PP "has no choice but to provoke dirty wars against Vox and demonize them" and that, he added, is what Pedro Sánchez then uses in the Congress rostrum. As an example, he cited the words of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who assured that Vox would like to "throw human beings into the sea." "(Mañueco) is of the foolish kind, it would be very good if he rectified the accusation, it is an infamy," he claimed again.
Vox blocked the investiture of the Extremaduran candidate María Guardiola last week and conversations in Aragon remain stalled. The polls suggest that both formations will end up being forced to reach an understanding after this Sunday's elections in Castilla y León.
In any case, Abascal has once again demanded from the PP “serious negotiations, without haste, with concrete measures, that include budgetary agreements, concrete items, concrete deadlines and guarantees of compliance” because, he stressed, “they are not trustworthy.”
Vox already formed coalition governments with the PP in Extremadura and Aragon after the 2023 elections, in addition to in the Valencian Community, Murcia, and Castile and Leon, but decided to break those executives a year later due to discrepancies with the 'populars' regarding the reception of migrant minors.