The far-right Vox takes its crusade against Islam to Seville and threatens to stop the mosque in Polígono Sur

The far-right Vox has not taken even a week to show where it wants to strain the new Andalusian board. The project for an Islamic cultural center with a mosque next to the Polígono Sur of Seville has opened the first visible clash between the far-right and the PP after the agreement that will lead Manuel Gavira to the Vice-Presidency of the Junta de Andalucía.

The future Andalusian vice-president has announced that Vox will try to "paralyze" the construction of the center because, he has said, his party is against the "Islamization" of neighborhoods. Gavira has brought the controversy to the Andalusian Parliament, where he has mixed the private project of a religious foundation with the so-called "national priority" included in the Government pact signed with the PP.

The comparison is not minor. Vox defends "national priority" to give preference to Spaniards over foreigners in aid, housing, and public benefits. Now it tries to respond to criticism for this concept using the expression "Muslim priority", taken from a journalistic headline about the future center. The problem is that one thing is a public policy that can affect access to rights and a very different thing is a private project on private land that must go through an urban planning license.

The center is promoted by the Mezquita de Sevilla Foundation and will be located next to the Polígono Sur. The prayer hall will have about 400 square meters, capacity for between 400 and 500 people, and a design with Andalusian latticework inspired by the Giralda. The mosque will be only one part of the complex, which also foresees cultural, educational, and social spaces. The investment, according to published information about the project, exceeds 10 million euros.

Vox turns an urban planning license into a cultural war

The Urban Planning commission of the Seville City Council must study the file this Friday. The City Council is governed by the PP of José Luis Sanz, which depends on the far-right party for some political agreements, although a building permit has a technical and regulated process. From the Andalusian PP, it has been conveyed that the City Council works with criteria of legality.

That point marks the pulse. Vox wants to elevate the debate to an identity battle, while the PP tries to keep it in the administrative realm. Gavira has promised judicial, political, and administrative actions to prevent the project. Vox's municipal group in Seville had already asked to halt it until "transparency" and "neighborhood consensus" were guaranteed, although their discourse has gone much further by linking the mosque to a supposed cultural threat.

The municipal spokesperson for Vox, Gonzalo García de Polavieja, even wondered if the local PP government had "surrendered" to the installation in Seville of "a culture that denigrates women". He also took the opportunity to attack the institutional tribute to Blas Infante, whom Vox again points out for his symbolic relationship with Andalusian nationalism and the community's Andalusian past.

Islamophobia in the Andalusia agreement

The movement fits with the ideological package that Vox has managed to place in the Andalusian Government agreement. The pact includes the end of the Arabic Language and Moroccan Culture Program starting from the 2027/2028 academic year, the rejection of new distributions of migrant minors, the audit of healthcare spending linked to foreigners, "national priority," and the prohibition of the burka and niqab in regional public spaces.

The Seville mosque has thus become the first showcase for that agenda. Vox is not just discussing a license, but is pointing to a specific religious confession, associating Islam with threat and trying to present a private facility as a political concession. It is the same framework that the far-right uses with immigration, foreign minors, or public aid: turning a social reality into permanent suspicion.

The PP, for now, has not followed that path. The position conveyed by the popular party is limited to the legality of the file and the ordinary functioning of the City Council. The project also comes after two decades of failed attempts to build a new mosque in Seville, with precedents in Los Bermejales and Sevilla Este.

Gavira has chosen the topic to mark territory even before formally taking a seat in San Telmo. On Friday, Urban Planning will have to decide on the file. The far-right Vox has already made it clear that it wants to turn this license into its first cultural battle within the new Andalusian political cycle.