While no far-right party has managed to get a single lawmaker into the national parliament or any of the 17 regional assemblies in the past three decades, Spain looks to be as fertile ground for right-wing populism as any other country in Europe. It just seems to be awaiting a charismatic leader to upset the established order.
Anti-immigration and anti-establishment sentiment — key factors driving the right-wing revival elsewhere — are at least as strong in Spain as the rest of Europe, according to research by Sonia Alonso and Cristóbal Rovira, who studied opinion polls across the Continent and found no meaningful differences. [...]
Spain’s fragmented far-right parties are largely driven by nostalgia for Franco and live up to the stereotype: a few thousand bickering extremists who gather to commemorate the dictator’s death carrying Francoist flags, doing the Nazi salute and singing the Falangists anthem “Cara al sol.” [...]
If that is to happen, the right-wingers will not only have to overcome their own strategic shortcomings and stop the infighting. They must also cope with the biggest factor that limits their growth: the ruling Popular Party’s largely unchallenged hegemony among far-right Spaniards. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of people who describe themselves as far-right voted for Rajoy in the past two national elections.
No comments:
Post a Comment