The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has defined this Monday as a "patriotic gesture" the pact reached with the PP to run with a joint list for the Senate in the elections of November 29. Under this agreement, Vox renounces to present its own candidacy in six provinces and limits its presence to a single candidate in another 14 constituencies.
"In three words: everything for Spain," Abascal stated during the presentation event of the heads of the list for the elections of November 29 held at the Auditorium of Talavera de la Reina (Toledo). He was accompanied at the event by the vice president and secretary general of the party, Ignacio Garriga, and by the deputy secretary of Communication, Manuel Mariscal, number one for Toledo. The party filled the venue, with about 1,200 people inside, while around 1,500 supporters, according to Vox data, were left outside.
Abascal emphasized the "many differences" that separate Vox from the PP, but insisted that "above" the programs is the need to give a "response" to the "Corrupt Front and the Traitor Front to Spain," referring to the agreement between PSOE and Frente Amplio to run with a single candidacy for the Upper House.
"We have real differences in the essentials that have to do with our campaign, in national priority, in re-emigration, in deregulation," the Vox leader reiterated in an interview on 'Telemadrid', reported by Europa Press. He also accused the 'popular' of having applied "part of the policies that have led us to this place."
Despite this, he defended that they were "obliged to make a political gesture" and expressed hope that "it will be useful for the objective." He highlighted the importance that, in his opinion, the Senate will have in the next legislature, especially due to the renewal of four magistrates of the Constitutional Court, a key element in the negotiation with the PP.
"We know that the left wants either to kidnap the Senate or to kidnap the Constitutional," he stated, criticizing several resolutions of the guarantees tribunal for giving "reason" to the Executive "in absolutely surprising things, even reviewing rulings of the Supreme Court" and "acting as a perfectly political and partisan tribunal."
The agreement sealed between PP and Vox, aimed at concentrating the vote of the right-wing bloc and countering the pact of PSOE, Frente Amplio, and the territorial left, establishes that Vox will not run in Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cádiz, Valencia, Castellón, and Balearic Islands. In these provinces, the PP will incorporate an independent candidate proposed by Vox into its list, to whom it will cede "the second or third position".
Additionally, Abascal's formation will only register one candidate in Seville, Huelva, Asturias, Badajoz, Álava, Navarra, Cáceres, Huesca, Zaragoza, Alicante, Granada, Cuenca, Pontevedra, and Jaén. In the other twenty-three provinces, Vox will run for the Senate with its usual lists.
For its part, the PP will not present a candidacy in Guipúzcoa, where it has not obtained a senator for 26 years, nor in Gerona and Tarragona, two constituencies in which it has never achieved representation in the Upper House. With this design, PP and Vox calculate to reach between 125 and 140 senators out of the 209 that are elected on November 29, according to sources familiar with the negotiation.
Vox claims its program and asks not to be overconfident
During his speech, Abascal emphasized that Vox's proposals, such as reducing bureaucracy, eliminating what it considers abusive taxes, or the repatriation of immigrants, "do not defend their own interests, but are the voice of the people".
In the same vein, he referred to the problems of access to housing, which he linked to the increase in immigration, and summarized the central axes of Vox's program for November 29: national priority, deregulation, and tax cuts, and "remigration" of illegal immigrants and legal ones who commit crimes or live off public aid.
Before the 53 heads of list for Congress for the 29N, Abascal urged the electorate "not to be overconfident", warning that the triumph of the right-wing bloc is not assured despite polls anticipating a wide majority for PP and Vox.
"We were already overconfident, especially some, the usual ones (referring to the PP), in 2023 and the change did not come," he recalled, insisting that "polls are polls". He warned that "there is not a Government opposite, but a criminal organization" whose "boss", whom he identified with the president, Pedro Sánchez, "is willing to any lie and any attempt at intimidation". "One should not sell the bear's skin before hunting it," he concluded.
Garriga, for his part, has emphasized that, with this agreement for the Upper House, Vox has placed "the general interest over the particular, the common good and Spain over names and chairs," and has celebrated the "generosity and broad-mindedness" demonstrated by the party.
At the same time, he has promised that Vox "will give voice" to those who feel "abandoned and betrayed" and has asked voters to trust that the party "is the guarantee to remove Pedro Sánchez" from La Moncloa. "We have come to change things," he concluded, calling for mobilization for the 29N.