The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has described the insinuation by Vox leader Santiago Abascal that he will "steal" the next general elections as "electoral flat-earthism" this Wednesday, and maintains that he is using it as an "excuse" to anticipate and justify a possible defeat at the polls. "It's a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy," Sánchez quipped, who also reproached Abascal for "breaking institutional responsibility" with such accusations.
In his speech, the head of the Executive pointed out that it is Vox's international allies, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the "financier" of the party, who "have degraded" electoral processes in their countries. In contrast, he stressed that "since I have been president, more than 40 electoral processes have been held in Spain, all of them exemplary," citing democratic normality in these elections as an example.
Sánchez also lashed out at Abascal, stating that he is in politics "to get rich" and that he lacks the real will to combat corruption. As an example, he recalled that the pacts signed between Vox and the PP in various autonomous communities do not include specific clauses or measures to combat corrupt practices.
"Purging" internal dissidents and accusations of fascism
Under the heading "PURGING THOSE WITHIN IS FASCISM," the president equated the actions of the PP and Vox to "eliminating those who denounce their corruption." He cited, in reference to the PP, the cases of Pablo Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and in the case of Vox, those who have left the party denouncing a lack of internal democracy and diversions of funds to the Disenso Foundation, the party's 'think tank', such as Macarena Olona, Javier Ortega Smith, Juan García-Gallardo, or Ángel Antelo.
"What did they do with these critical voices? Did they open internal investigations?" Sánchez asked himself from the podium of Congress. "No," he answered himself, before immediately attacking Vox's leadership's reaction.
"What Abascal did was to purge and expel these people from the Vox party: that is his response to cases of corruption that personally affect him, his family circle, and his organization," he continued. "In the PSOE, we expel the corrupt, and in the PP and Vox, they expel those who denounce them," he concluded, thus marking a difference in how, according to him, each party deals with internal scandals.
Sánchez has described this behavior of "not admitting discrepancies within" and, by extension, "not admitting them outside" as the reflection of a "totalitarian" and "fascist" project.
"Silencing one's own is what fascism always does, first silencing one's own to then silence others," the president affirmed, accusing Abascal of trying to transfer this way of acting to the whole of political life in Spain.