Spain’s Far-Right Resurgence Comes From Decades of Fascist Organizing
In recent decades, Spain has often been painted as the only European country without a far right. But even in the 1990s, violent street movements were building their forces — and now they’re entering the country’s political institutions, too.
Journalist and author Miquel Ramos. (Photo: Cristina Candel)
In Spain’s last general election in 2019, the far right achieved its best ever result. With 3.7 million votes (15 percent) and fifty-two seats, Vox became the third-largest party in the Congreso de los Diputados. And it hasn’t stopped advancing. Earlier this year, it joined the government in Castilla y León, Spain’s largest region. If a decade ago Vox didn’t exist, today its leaders appear on prime-time comedy shows — and with general elections slated for 2023, they could soon even be in cabinet.
All this has been a surprise to a certain mainstream mantra. For decades, it had painted Spain as an oasis of democracy, even the only country in Europe without a far right, just because it didn’t show up on election day. But recognizing these forces’ power today is also about facing up to reality. The Spanish far right isn’t just back: it never really went away. Vox is not its only name. That’s something committed anti-fascists have known for over three decades.
As for many others from his generation, anti-fascism is a personal matter for journalist Miquel Ramos, born in Valencia in 1979. A month before Miquel turned fourteen, the eighteen-year-old activist Guillem Agulló was stabbed to death by far-right militants. Ramos knew Agulló through his presence in left-wing demonstrations and political spaces. Indeed, the 1990s were years in which teenagers saw rising fascist violence in the streets. In a year and a half, trans woman Sonia Rescalvo in Barcelona, migrant worker of Dominican origin Lucrecia Pérez in Madrid, and Agulló were all killed.
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