The climate of political tension, marked by the renewal of the Constitutional Court and the threat of a motion of censure initiated by Vox and Ciudadanos, has been aggravated by the speech hardening that the rights have embraced, similar to those established by Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in their countries.
Although the chant of the illegitimate government has been ringing since the beginning of the legislature, terms such as “authoritarian”, “totalitarian”, “coup” or “autocratic” have been repeated by various sectors of the right in the last week. “Sánchez is giving a self-coup to Spanish democracy from the Government of Spain. And Sánchez is no longer a president of the Government, he is a dictator’s apprentice to whom we have to stop, forcefully,” said the leader of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas.
“Sánchez is giving a self-coup to Spanish democracy (…) he is a dictator’s apprentice,” Arrimadas declared
In the same terms, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has indicated that Sánchez is “preparing a scenario that would allow him to give the self-coup that Pedro Castillo has given in Peru and there would be no legal capacity to arrest or judge him”, due to the Government’s decision to eliminate the three-fifths majority in the CGPJ for the renewal of the Constitutional Constitution.
Both parties lead the movement to present the motion of no confidence in the Government, from which the PP has remained on the sidelines. Although its leader, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo, has avoided commenting on the matter, he has expressed concern about “the future of Spain” because “we are facing the most authoritarian president of Spanish democracy.” The popular accused Sánchez of committing a “assault on the rule of law” to “stay in power” and of trying to control the Constitutional Court.
“We are facing the most authoritarian president of Spanish democracy,” Feijóo said about Sánchez
Feijóo thus subscribes the words of his party partner Isabel Diaz Ayusowho last week described the government led by Sánchez as a “totalitarian regime” and set herself up as the “uncomfortable counterweight to totalitarianism.”
Since the appearance of Vox in politics the red lines in right-wing discourses they have faded over time. With scenes like that of the ultra deputy Carla Toscano affirming Irene Montero’s “sole merit” has been “studying Pablo Iglesias in depth”.
Criticism from the left
Regarding this drift of the right, figures from the left have been referred to as Pablo Iglesias, Gabriel Rufián or Oskar Matutewho have criticized the lightness with which the discourse has hardened and the apparent impunity that seems to exist.
“When the three rights they are accusing the president of carrying out a self-coup and they boast of managing the CGPJ, there should be no room for half measures. If action is not taken soon, the political right will take action and the media right will say that the coup plotter is the government allied with Bildu,” criticized the former vice president of the government.
Along the same lines, Gabriel Rufián has referred to the dangerousness of the right-wing discourse and the current inaction on his words: “You start by doing nothing when the three right-wings and their media speakers call an illegitimate government and a coup d’état to a pact between democratic parties in a democratic parliament and it ends with an assault led by guys dressed as bison in that same parliament.”
Other recognizable faces such as Oskar Matute and Juan Carlos Monedero came out at the crossroads with Arrimadas’ statements about the Government. “That’s why people don’t vote for him,” ironized the EH Bildu deputy on his Twitter account. Purse, for his part, recalled that attempt to form a government with PSOE, United We Can and Citizens: “The undersigned who supported a coalition government between the PSOE and Cs, know that you would have made this lady a minister. And that it is likely that you will continue to screw up today when you do not let the best of your virtues emerge, which is the humility. With humility I say it”.
Trump, Bolsonaro, QAnon and the mirror of Germany
The drift of the rights is reminiscent in its form and substance of the discourse put forward by other foreign figures such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Both reluctant to admit their electoral defeats. In the case of the former, his speech led to the assault on the Capitol, in the case of the latter, his long silence after losing to Lula generated a climate of tension in Brazil, which began to fear that the American example would be replicated.
The Republican keeps talking about “massive fraud” in his electoral defeat and has even raised rescinding the Constitution to return to the White House. Something similar to the more than repeated speech of the “illegitimate” Government used by Santiago Abascal or Pablo Casado at the time.
Behind Trump’s slogans is the QAnon group, the most influential movement at the moment on conspiracy theories. This group is responsible for the famous attack on the Capitol after Trump’s electoral defeat, which they consider his “savior”.
With the reach of social networks, its borders have expanded beyond those of the United States. The growing rise of far-right and populist movements in Europe has been a fertile field for movement. His ability to convince has been reflected in the recent coup attempt in Germany, motivated by far-right groups and under the slogans of the digital movement.
The German far-right group that organized the coup felt “a profound rejection of the institutions of the State and the liberal democratic order”, since they deny the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany, which they consider illegala concept not too far from “illegitimate”.
