From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   In Europe, Far Right Is Gaining Influence. Spain Could Be Next.   
   By Margherita Stancati, July 20, 2023, WSJ   
   VALENCIA, Spain—For decades after the death of dictator Francisco Franco,   
   Spain was viewed as largely immune to the appeal of the far right. That is no   
   longer so. After years in opposition, the far-right Vox party has emerged as a   
   likely kingmaker in    
   Spain’s coming parliamentary elections.   
      
   Across Western Europe, stridently nationalist parties considered fringe just a   
   few years ago are moving to the center stage, promising to banish crime,   
   restore traditional values, increase welfare and disempower what they describe   
   as out-of-touch elites.    
      
   The groups are gaining popularity over the failure of governments to address   
   the economic woes of the working class and solve a slow-burn refugee crisis.   
   In some countries, they are also benefiting from growing fatigue over   
   Europe’s continued support    
   for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.   
      
   “A right-wing populist backlash by the white working class was   
   inevitable,” said Thomas Greven, a professor of political science at the   
   Free University of Berlin who studies right-wing populism in Europe and   
   America. “For me, it goes back to the    
   failure of center-left, social-democratic parties to manage, in a socially   
   acceptable way, increased global competition.”    
      
   Spain is shaping up to become the next example of the trend. The moderately   
   conservative Popular Party is leading in the polls ahead of Sunday’s   
   election, but it is unlikely to secure the votes it needs to rule alone.   
      
   That is why its leadership is reluctantly considering an alliance with Vox, a   
   party that prominent members of the PP have described as extremist, xenophobic   
   and hostile to women.   
      
   The radical right “is becoming normalized,” said Rafael Bardají, a   
   political strategist for Vox. “Once you have a government in place like   
   Meloni’s [in Italy], people no longer smell sulfur when they see you.”    
      
   The trend is evident across the continent. In Italy, PM Giorgia Meloni is   
   leading Western Europe’s most right-wing government in decades. In   
   Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats are providing vital outside support to the   
   ruling coalition in Stockholm. In    
   France, the popularity of the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is growing and   
   the gap in opinion polls between her and President Emmanuel Macron has   
   narrowed.   
      
   Elsewhere, centrist parties are struggling to isolate groups long shunned as   
   pariahs. In Germany, the nativist AfD, or Alternative for Germany, recently   
   won its first district election. Its popularity is close to a record high,   
   making it the country’s    
   second-most popular party, according to polls.   
      
   While the messages of Europe’s far-right parties vary across the continent,   
   their popularity is generally driven by mainly white, Christian lower-middle-   
   and working-class voters who feel economically left behind and oppose social   
   change.    
      
   The parties’ focus on upholding the interests of the native-born and their   
   resistance against rising diversity in society marks them apart from   
   established conservative forces, political scientists say. So do their   
   admiration for foreign strongman    
   leaders and their authoritarian tendencies expressed in their disdain for   
   institutions like the courts or the free press, which they regard as biased   
   and left-leaning.    
      
   Increasingly, far-right parties have been focusing on culture-war issues, such   
   as gender identity and climate change.   
      
   Even where they don’t win elections, the far right is pulling mainstream   
   parties away from the center and influencing how their countries are run.   
   Their growing prominence could reshape the continent’s political landscape   
   on issues ranging from    
   immigration to climate to the rights of the LGBTQ community.    
      
   Mainstream conservatives increasingly find themselves in the predicament of   
   having to decide whether to join hands with their more right-wing competitors,   
   co-opt their ideas or risk staying out of power.   
      
   The outcome of the Spanish election is hard to predict. It is still possible   
   they will lead to a new term for the incumbent Socialist prime minister, Pedro   
   Sánchez.   
      
   But polls show the PP is widely expected to fare better, with around 35% of   
   Spaniards planning to vote for it, according to the latest polls. Vox is   
   expected to win 13% of the vote, roughly in line with the previous election.   
      
   Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP’s leader and front-runner to be Spain’s   
   next prime minister, has said he doesn’t want to share power with Vox, whose   
   supporters and members include admirers of Franco, the late Spanish dictator.   
   But the PP’s best    
   shot at winning an absolute majority in parliament is by doing just that.   
      
   Following elections in the coastal region of Valencia in May, the two parties   
   quickly reached a power-sharing agreement to replace the center-left   
   administration in one of the richest and most populated parts of Spain.    
      
   For Vox, it was a coup. Until a few months ago, it had been a marginal player   
   in Spain’s federal political system. Vox was in the local government of just   
   one of Spain’s 17 regions, Castile and León. In some regional parliaments,   
   Vox politicians    
   didn’t have a single seat. Now they are in parliaments in all of Spain’s   
   regions and share power with the PP in four of them. More could follow.    
      
   “We are very used to being in the margins,” said Carlos Flores, a   
   prominent Vox politician in Valencia. “Being in government in Valencia, in   
   other communities and possibly at the national level is an enormous leap for   
   us.”   
      
   Like other radical right politicians, Flores is an admirer of Hungary’s   
   populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose government the European Union’s   
   parliament has called an “electoral autocracy” for hounding the free   
   press, eroding the    
   independence of courts, and criminalizing the work of certain NGOs.   
      
   Vox was founded a decade ago by ex-PP members who felt their party was moving   
   too close to the center. It gained popularity after separatists in Catalonia   
   staged an illegal referendum that called for the region’s independence in   
   2017. Vox faulted the    
   government for being too soft on the separatists. Two years later, it won its   
   first seats in Spain’s parliament.   
      
      
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