The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, assured this Tuesday that "the autonomy" of his party remains "intact" despite the agreement reached with the PP to run for the Senate, emphasizing that both formations continue to maintain deep discrepancies in different areas.
The understanding between Vox and the PP aims to concentrate the vote of the right-wing bloc in the Upper House and counteract the pact between PSOE, Frente Amplio, and territorial leftist forces. Under this agreement, Abascal's party renounces presenting its own lists in six provinces and incorporates an independent candidate on the ballots of the 'popular' party.
Additionally, Vox will only present one candidate in another fourteen constituencies, while the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo will not run in Guipúzcoa, Gerona, and Tarragona. With this joint strategy, the two formations estimate achieving between 125 and 140 of the 209 senators elected on November 29, a figure that would place them close to the three-fifths of the Upper House necessary to unblock the renewal of the Constitutional Court (TC) and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
"The autonomy of Vox is intact," Abascal reiterated before journalists in Plasencia (Cáceres), stressing that his organization and the PP are "very different." In this sense, he emphasized several axes on which they disagree and that, according to him, "define" the Vox voter: national priority, deregulation, and "remigration."
Despite these differences, Abascal justified the agreement with the popular party. "There is an attempt by the mafia to hijack the institutions after November 29 (...) and we understand that people who do not share our message of national priority, deregulation, and remigration should have the opportunity to vote for a party like the PP and not be forced to vote for a mafia like the one presided over by Sánchez," he argued.
The candidates of Vox on the Senate lists
Abascal was also asked about the independent candidates listed by the PP for the Senate from Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Balearic Islands, Valencia, Cádiz, and Castellón, all of whom are linked to Vox.
From Abascal's formation, they insist that they are independent regarding the PP and that they are not neutral figures in political terms, even though they are not affiliated with Vox. The party leader has defended that it is not a mistake to label them as "independents."
Likewise, he commented on the election of Ignacio de Hoces and Marcela Reigía as heads of the list for Congress for Badajoz and Cáceres, respectively, both from Madrid.
Abascal detailed that the selection of candidates is made with the criterion that they have the willingness to represent Spain and that their function is to represent the nation, so for Vox "the important thing is that they say the same thing everywhere." "We are satisfied with the election of all of them, they are Spaniards, like all the candidates running for Vox," he concluded.