Spanish Vox party to enter parliament

Called a party of the “extreme right”, the Spanish party Vox has finally succeeded with nearly 10 percent of the vote. The political party won 24 seats in the Spanish Parliament, more than 40 years after the death of Francisco Franco, reported FranceInfo on Monday, April 29.

Three years ago, the party won only 0.2 percent of the vote. According to the Ministry of Interior, the turnout was 75.78 percent, a figure up 9 points from the 2016 poll.

The Socialists (PSOE), credited with nearly 29 percent of votes, won 123 seats in Parliament. This score, significantly higher than the 85 seats won in the 2016 legislative elections, however, does not allow the Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, to have an absolute majority of 176 out of 350 deputies.

The conservatives of the People’s Party (PP), meanwhile, have lost half of their seats and have fell to 66 deputies, against 137 in 2016. Finally, the Liberals of Ciudadanos could count on a successful operation, up from 32 to 57 deputies.

“The future has won and the past has lost,” said Pedro Sanchez on Sunday night, certain of his victory, in front of the militants at the party’s headquarters in Madrid. But the Prime Minister will have to look for allies to govern a divided country.

“The left knows that the party is over,” the Vox party said with the voice of its number two, Javier Ortega Smith. The leader of the movement, Santiago Abascal, meanwhile announced the launch of “the reconquest”. He said: “Vox has come to stay.” The Vox party is supported in France by the National Rally and the Northern League in Italy.

The coming parliamentary elections to determine who leads the major EU institutions, including the Commission, the bloc’s civil service, are important as a bellwether of sentiment among EU citizens, who have become increasingly disillusioned with the European project.

Spain has suffered the most terror-related deaths in the EU, with 268 victims. France followed closely with 263 terror-related casualties.

The recently released Black and White Book of Terrorism in Europe has revealed that 91 percent of all the terror attacks since 2000 have been perpetrated by radical Islamists.

The book was the work of Spanish MEP and president of the Foundation for Victims of Terrorism, Maité Pagazaurtundua. The author noted that 753 people were killed in terror attacks across the European Union during the time span between 2000 and 2019.

The French daily Le Figaro, reported that another 115 people including tourists and military personnel were also victims of radical jihadists during the same period of time and 20 percent of those murdered were killed by suicide bombers.

Conversely, casualties resulting from far-right extremists and far-left extremists were far lower, with each accounting for the murder of 13 people.

The German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), said that numbers of violent far-left extremists had risen from 7 100 to 9 000 between 2012 and 2017 while the number of far-left extremist crimes increased by 88 percent.

According to Europol, in 2017, Europeans faced approximately 205 separate terror plots. Of that number 107 of them were reported by the United Kingdom.