The anti-immigration, right-wing populist Vox party has overtaken the center-right People’s Party (PP) in a national poll for the first time as Santiago Abascal’s party continues to enjoy its rapid rise to prominence.
A recent survey conducted for Spanish digital newspaper, Okdiario, showed that electoral support for Vox had increased to 22.1 percent, up by 5.1 percent on similar polling undertaken on Jan. 5. In contrast, the PP had lost 6.1 percent of its vote and currently sits at 21.7 percent.
It marks the first time in a national poll that the Vox party has proven more popular than the PP, and places Abascal’s party behind Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s socialists (PSOE) by just 3.3 percent.
Analysts will point to the regional parliamentary elections in Castile and León on Feb. 13 as a turning point; Vox won 13 seats, a result which effectively makes the party the kingmaker in the formation of the autonomous community’s government, and gives the party an opportunity to show what it can do in government.
In a recent speech in Valladolid ahead of the regional election, Vox leader Santiago Abascal praised those who would turn out for the party, describing them as victims who are suffering from political correctness and uncontrolled mass migration.
The party’s vice-president, Jorge Buxadé MEP believes that the upwards trajectory in regional elections and national polling will only continue and declares the next general election “the right moment to put Vox in the Spanish government with Santiago Abascal as president.”
The next election is due before Dec. 10 next year.
