Spaniards demonstrated on Sunday that they are every bit as divided as other European countries where racist right-wing parties have been winning popular support. Although the outgoing socialist party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won the largest share of the vote, he must once again have to work in a coalition with the left-wing Podemos party but will still be one vote short of a parliamentary majority. Unless he is prepared to try a minority government with the risk of losing a confidence vote over a key issue, Sanchez may need to secure the support of a regional party.
Essentially this means either Basque or Catalan legislators, both of whom have separatist agendas, with the Catalans effectively in open revolt against control from Madrid. Of particular concern has to be the appearance in parliament for the first time of the racist and Islamophobic Vox party which won just over 10 percent of the vote. Beside Vox’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, one of the party’s leading campaign promises was to oppose regionalist demands, specifically those from the Catalan independence movement.
Even though the center-right Popular Party, which was in government until last year, sought to echo many of Vox’s extremist policies, it saw its vote collapse, losing more than half of its MPs. In one respect, Sanchez benefited from the split in the right-wing vote. The third rightist part, Ciudadanos, which won 57 seats, clearly, along with Vox, took votes from the People’s Party. The Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera has vowed not to serve in a coalition with the socialists. But this is democratic politics. Rivera was deeply critical of Sanchez’s cooperation with the Catalan independence movement. If Sanchez can promise to row back on working with the Catalan separatists, he might yet lure Ciudadanos into an uneasy but nevertheless functioning coalition government.
Yet whatever the outcome of the politicking and, leaving aside Spain’s enduring separatist issues, what happened in Sunday’s vote must raise further concerns for what was once Europe’s liberal consensus. Throughout the continent, far-right parties have been winning support by playing the racist, Islamophobic cards, focusing their bile on the generally humane policies toward immigrants, particularly those driven from their homes by vicious conflicts.
On balance, governments could try to claw back some political ground by tackling the problem of economic migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, who have no right to claim asylum in Europe. But this would mean a major concerted effort by the authorities to weed out these illegal immigrants. Liberal political leaders fear the row that could arise from such enforcement of their own laws. Instead they prefer to fudge the issue and insist the task of screening and repatriating economic migrants is simply too great and too complex.
Unless, however, they are prepared to bite this bullet, they are going to be forced into an ever-more unacceptable political position. Trying to filch the filthy clothes of the Islamophobic race-hate parties is a counsel of despair. What is needed is the political courage and capital to sort out the legitimate from the illegal economic migrants. Rather than stealing their odious policies, European centrist parties would then be able to steal the thunder of bigoted far right parties who are stoking the fears and disillusionment of European voters.
