The leader of the far-right Vox, Santiago Abascal, has presented as a "patriotic gesture" the agreement reached with the Popular Party to coordinate their candidacies for the Senate in the general elections on November 29. "In three words: all for Spain", he stated this Monday during an electoral event held at the Talavera de la Reina Auditorium, in Toledo.
However, the pact represents a joint strategy to concentrate right-wing votes and prevent the division between PP and Vox from reducing their representation in the Upper House. Abascal's party will not present its own candidacies in six provinces and will field only one candidate in another 14, while the Popular Party will withdraw its lists in three territories.
The agreement comes after weeks of negotiation and just hours before the deadline for submitting candidacies. Although Abascal has presented it as a concession for the general interest, both parties seek to increase their chances of controlling the Senate and stop the joint candidacy of the PSOE, the Broad Front, and the territorial lefts. The event in Talavera de la Reina brought together the vice-president and secretary general of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, and the party's deputy secretary of communication and head of the list for Toledo, Manuel Mariscal. According to figures provided by the party itself, the auditorium, with a capacity for about 1,200 people, was full and another 1,500 were left outside.
The pact between PP and Vox to divide Senate candidacies
The agreement affects 23 provinces. Vox will not present its own candidacy in Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cádiz, Valencia, Castellón, and the Balearic Islands. In exchange, the PP will include independent candidates proposed by Vox in its lists, reserving the second or third position for them, depending on the territory. In addition, Vox will present a single candidate in Seville, Huelva, Asturias, Badajoz, Álava, Navarra, Cáceres, Huesca, Zaragoza, Alicante, Granada, Cuenca, Pontevedra, and Jaén. In this way, Vox voters will be able to choose their candidate and also support two PP aspirants.
For their part, the popular party will not present its own candidacy in Guipúzcoa, Girona, and Tarragona. The PP justifies this decision due to its historical difficulties in obtaining representation in these constituencies: it has been 26 years without getting a senator in Guipúzcoa and has never achieved representation in the Senate for Girona and Tarragona. In the remaining 23 provinces, both formations will run normally.
The objective is to take advantage of the Senate election system, in which citizens vote directly for candidates and the most voted candidacies usually concentrate a good part of the seats in each province. Thus, PP and Vox intend to prevent their votes from being divided and facilitate the right-wing bloc getting more senators. According to estimates released by sources familiar with the negotiation, both parties aspire to obtain between 125 and 140 of the 209 senators directly elected at the polls. The Senate also has members designated by regional parliaments, so the final result will depend both on the November 29th vote and on that representation.
The agreement is also important for Vox because the formation needs ten senators to form its own parliamentary group in the Upper House. It currently has five senators by regional designation, so its objective is to increase its representation at the polls. However, the announced pact alone does not guarantee that it will reach that number.
Abascal attacks Sánchez while asking Vox not to be overconfident
During the event, Abascal defended Vox's main proposals for November 29th: reducing bureaucracy, lowering taxes, applying the so-called "national priority" and promoting "remigration", a term the formation uses to defend the expulsion of immigrants in certain situations.
The leader of Vox has also linked the housing problem to the increase in immigration, a political interpretation that is part of his party's discourse. His proposals include restrictive measures on immigration and public aid, as well as a reduction of regulations he considers unnecessary. Abascal has insisted that Vox's proposals do not respond to particular interests, but rather, as he has stated, represent the citizens. However, the pact with the PP shows that both parties are willing to coordinate their candidacies to maximize their electoral possibilities, even when they maintain political differences and compete for part of the same electorate.
The leader has also asked his followers not to take a right-wing victory for granted, despite polls that point to a possible majority for PP and Vox. "We already got complacent, especially some, the usual ones (in allusion to the PP), in 2023 and change did not come," he said. He then attacked the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, whom he accused of leading a supposed "criminal organization" and stated that he would be willing to resort to "any lie and any attempt at intimidation." These expressions are political accusations by Abascal and do not in themselves constitute a judicial finding about the Government.
For his part, Ignacio Garriga has defended that Vox has prioritized "the general interest over the particular, the common good and Spain over names and seats." He has also presented his party as a guarantee to remove Sánchez from La Moncloa and has asked his supporters to mobilize at the polls. With this agreement, PP and Vox reinforce their electoral coordination in an important part of the territory. Abascal presents it as a patriotic sacrifice, but the practical objective is clear: to concentrate right-wing votes, increase their representation in the Senate and make it difficult for the left-wing alliance to achieve a majority in the Upper House.
