Spain: Castile-et-León, launching ramp of far-right cultural war

The VOX party takes advantage of its regional coalition government with the preservatives of the People’s Party to promote an anti-abortion, anti-fameministic and hostile discourse to the memorial policy of the central government.

By Sandrine Morel (Madrid, correspondent)

On the one hand, the Spanish central government, on the left, has approved a new law on abortion which, once submitted to the Senate vote in February, should allow young girls of 16 to interrupt their Pregnancy without informing their parents and supervising the right to conscientious objection of anti-abortion doctors so that it does not drive the right to abortion. On the other, the vice-president of the regional government of Castille-et-Léon, Juan Garcia-Gallardo, of the far-right party Vox, launched a pavement in the pond, mid-January, by announcing a new “protocol anti-abortion “.

strongly inspired by the measures put in place by the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban, it would consist of imposing on women wishing to listen first to the heartbeat of their fetus and to be subjected to a 4D ultrasound. “For us, the right to life is a priority,” summed up Juan Garcia-Gallardo on January 12.

a controversy that falls badly

The outcry caused by this announcement forced the President of the Region, the curator Alfonso Fernandez Mañueco (popular party, right – pp), to react. Obviously uncomfortable, he contradicted his coalition partner by ensuring that doctors could offer this possibility, “voluntarily”, to women who wish. Mr. Mañueco even denied the existence of any protocol when the central government, worried about a measure which would go against national legislation, said it was ready to intervene to suspend the powers of the region by health matter.

As for the national leaders of the People’s Party, for ten days, they tried to defuse a controversy that fell badly for them. While the general elections will take place at the latest in December, and the municipal and regional elections, on May 28, the president of the party, Alberto Nuñez-Feijoo, seeks to complete a turn in the center.

It will soon be a year that the first coalition government between the conservative right of the People’s Party (PP) and the Far Right Party Vox was trained in Spain, March 10, 2022, in Castille-et-Léon . Since then, the controversies raised by the representatives of Vox in this region of the center of the kingdom have continued to fuel their cultural war.

Anti-abortion discourse, targeted attacks against unions, anti-feminist messages and provocative initiatives of all kinds, the words made by Vox leaders in Castile-et-Léon betray more obsessions of the Spanish extreme right than real desire for political management. Moreover, Vox took care not to entrust to Mr. Garcia-Gallardo no ministerial portfolio, leaving him to disseminate his messages without assuming responsibilities in their realization. As for the PP, far from “moderating Vox”, as he predicted last year, he is regularly trained in debates that he did not want and splashed by the often outrageous remarks of his coalition partner.

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/Media reports cited above.