Joining the trend of emerging far-right parties in Europe, Spain’s new party Vox led by a former member of the conservative People’s Party is expected to win its first representatives in the European parliament after getting seats in the national parliament for the first time in the April 28 general election.
A GAD3 poll published by the ABC newspaper on May 13 predicted 7.8% of the vote for Vox which would get them five seats in the European assembly.
Riding on the tide of nationalist feelings triggered by Catalonia’s independence drive, party leader Santiago Abascal has described Vox’s gains as a ‘reconquest’ and has vowed to defend Spain’s national sovereignty in Europe and its borders against mass migration.
In April it went from zero to 24 seats in the national parliament championing Spanish unity.
Spain’s Socialists, which won the national election on April 28 without a parliamentary majority, were seen by the GAD3 poll as winning 20 seats in the upcoming election, or 30.3% of the vote. That would be six more seats than in the 2014 EU election.
PP would be second, but with its number of seats dropping from 16 to 12, after it lost more than half its seats in the national election. The center-right Ciudadanos would see its number of lawmakers jump from 2 to 10.