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Vox is a Spanish far-right party founded in December 2013, which is currently the third largest party in the country. Vox emerged as a far-right split from the right-wing Partido Popular (PP). Initially, the party had very limited successes, but with the Catalan secession crisis in 2017 Vox got major upwind,1 as of 2023 polling around 15% of the national votes. Vox is currently led by party president Santiago Abascal, a former PP member; vice presidents Jorge Buxadé, Javier Ortega Smith, Reyes Romero; and secretary general Ignacio Garriga.

Vox is a member of the right-wing to far-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, with Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch currently serving as a vice chairman of the group.2 Jorge Buxadé is vice president of the ECR party3 and works in the bureau of the ECR Group.4 ECR consists mostly of far-right parties, including Law and Justice (Poland), Fratelli d'Italia, and the Sweden Democrats.5

At first, Vox was close to Matteo Salvini's Lega party in Italy. However, in March 2021, Salvini said there were no longer any links between the two parties, with Vox growing closer to Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia instead.6 This realignment was reinforced in the course of the Ukraine war, with Vox and Brothers of Italy unequivocally supporting Ukraine.

Vox brings together monarchists and fascists alike, many hailing from Francoist and Falangist organizations. In Spain, the party receives ample support by ultra-Catholic, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTIQ groups, such as Opus Dei, HazteOir, and CitizenGo. Internationally, Vox maintains close ties to far-right, and mostly ultra-Catholic, parties and organizations, particularly in Latin America. For example, Vox is in close contact with the National Action Party of Mexico, and several Vox cadres have been identified as members of the ultra-Catholic Mexican sect El Yunque, which in turn has close ties to Opus Dei.

The party profile shares many features with other far-right parties, such as opposing immigration (particularly by Muslims); pledging for lower taxes and industry-friendly legislation; supporting private gun ownership; opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, feminism or LGBTIQ rights; or staging indignation over mainstream politics or corrupt political elites.1 But Spain's history brings in specific elements into the mix of Vox's party platform, such as support of the monarchy or opposition to Catalan independence.

Since 2020, the party runs a think tank, Fundación Disenso, and a labor organization called Solidaridad.

Timeline

2013

Vox was founded on December 17, 2013, as a far-right split from the right-wing People's Party (PP). The party platform sought to rewrite the constitution to abolish regional autonomy and parliaments.7 Several of its early supporters (e.g., Alejo Vidal-Quadras, José Antonio Ortega Lara, and Santiago Abascal) had been members of the platform "reconversion.es" that issued a manifesto in 2012 vouching for the recentralization of the Spanish state.8 Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who left the Partido Popular in January 2014 to join Vox, was elected provisional president of the party in March 2014 as well as head of the list for the European Parliament elections in May that year, for which Vox ran for the first time, but narrowly failed to win a seat.

National Council of Resistance of Iran

Notwithstanding the party's anti-Muslim platform, Vidal-Quadras received substantial funds from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) ahead of the European Parliament elections, an Iranian exile organization formerly listed as international terrorist group. NCRI is a political coalition made up of different Iranian dissident groups aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its main member being the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). "The MEK has a mixed reputation in Washington — at times, it has been classified as a terrorist organization — but it does have some friends: Both national security adviser John Bolton and Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani have spoken at its annual Paris event," according to Anne Applebaum.1 El País reported that Vox received funds from the NCRI/MEK totaling around 800,000 euros, split up in numerous individual donations9 - a gratuity explained by the "personal relationship" of the NCRI with Vidal-Quadras, who had supported the organization throughout his stint in the EU Parliament until 2014, when he was still with PP.10

2014

HazteOír

From the beginning Vox had the strong support of HazteOír, an ultra-Catholic anti-LGBTIQ hate group and internet platform, which hosted the press conference at which the party first appeared before the media on January 16, 2014.11 HazteOir, which is known in Spain for organizing anti-choice mass rallies and campaigns, is the Spanish-speaking precursor to the internationally operating CitizenGo organization - which incidentally was founded in the same year as Vox (2013). CitizenGo hosts a multi-language online platform that launches petitions to further its ultra-reactionary causes worldwide. The organization is financed by online donations which the journalist J. Lester Feder estimated at tens of thousands of euros per month.12 According to an undercover inquiry by OpenDemocracy, it is likely that the organization serves as vehicle used by the Vox party to circumvent donation limits, at the very least heavily promoting the party free of charge.13

That there was a connection between Vox and the two organizations right from the start is not surprising, given that Ignacio Arsuaga, founder and president of HazteOir and CitizenGo, has been a friend of Santiago Abascal for many years.14

Vota Valores

In 2014, HazteOir launched a campaign in favor of Vox called "Vota Valores," including an eponymous web portal in which it made it clear that the only party with "values" was Vox.15 In April 2014, a Vota Valores panel discussion with empty seats took place in the HazteOir/CitizenGo studio, one representing each party that was allegedly invited but did not appear. Only the host, Miguel Vidal and the Vox politician Ana María Velasco Vidal-Abarca were actually discussing.16

A media stunt by the Vota Valores campaign of HazteOir in 2014. They hosted a panel with empty seats, one representing each party that was allegedly invited but did not appear. Only the host, Miguel Vidal and the Vox politician Ana María Velasco Vidal-Abarca were actually discussing.

Image Source
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trbeVTVhzAQ

In June 2014, Vidal Quadras announced that he would step down as provisional president in September that year, when a new party present was to be elected.17 After abandoning all participation in internal activities and being disavowed for advocating for Vox's rapprochement with Unión Progreso y Democracia and Ciudadanos,18 he announced his withdrawal from the party in February 2015.19

El Yunque

El Yunque logo

In September 2014, the party elected Santiago Abascal, one of the party founders, as new President, and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, also a founder, as General Secretary - with Vox notably radicalizing its speech from then on.20 Espinosa, who comes from a wealthy Spanish noble family,1 as well as his wife Rocío Monasterio are members of the ultra-Catholic Mexican sect El Yunque.21 The Opus Dei-educated22 Monasterio currently heads the Madrid section of Vox and serves as spokesperson for HazteOir.

2015 & 2016

The party participated in the 2015 and the 2016 elections, but did not do well, scoring 0.23% and 0.20% of votes respectively.

2016

In May 2016 a collection of party militants, including Javier Ortega Smith (then party general secretary) and Nacho Mínguez (then president of Vox Madrid), entered British-controlled Gibraltar and unfurled a Spanish flag, which resulted in the latter being arrested.23 According to Ignacio Arsuaga, interviewed by OpenDemocracy, "Javier Ortega Smith, simultaneously the lawyer leading Vox’s private prosecution of Catalan independence supporters, 'comes, I would say, from the hard right, like Falangists… Franco’s movement – but nobody knows, it’s a kind of private thing.'"13

2017

According to Carles Ferreira, the turning point in the progressive radicalization of Vox occurred in January 2017 when members participated in a meeting of the European far right in Germany.24 The Eurosceptic summit took place in Koblenz, bringing together leaders of the European extreme right such as Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National); Frauke Petry (Alternative for Germany) or Geert Wilders (PvV) - with whom Santiago Abascal maintained close contacts at the time.25 According to Al Jazeera, "The conference was organised by the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF),"26 the precursor to the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament. France24 reported that "Vox has since 2017 been in contact with Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon."27 Bannon, states Carles Ferreira, "clearly identified Vox with the trend of the new right in Europe."24
Following the Catalan referendum of 2017 and the start of a Spanish constitutional crisis, Vox opted to not participate in the Catalan regional elections of 2017.28 After the Catalan declaration of independence, the party sued the Parliament of Catalonia and several independent politicians,1 the number of its members increased by 20% in forty days.29 In a highly publicized show trial, Vox' lawyer, Javier Ortega Smith, and also the party’s secretary general, could be seen frequently on prime time TV.

2018

Rafael Bardaji

In April 2018, "Rafael Bardají, a member of Vox’s National Executive Committee, traveled to Washington ... to meet Bannon, as well as other members of the U.S. government, so he claimed," Slate reported.30 Rafael Luis Bardají López (born Badajoz, 1959) is a Spanish author, sociologist and former national security advisor to the Spanish government. In 2018, Bardaji announced he had ended his longstanding affiliation to the People's Party and had joined Vox.31 Bardaji's role in Vox has been described as "the main channel that has put the Vox leaders in contact with the American neocon world."32 In 2019, he joined the board of directors of Explosivos Alaveses, SA (Expal Systems), a company dedicated to the manufacture of weapons and ammunition.33 Furthermore, Bardaji is a member of the pro-Zionist Friends of Israel Initiative in Spain.34 According to Anne Applebaum1 :

Bardají, who says he also knows Jason Greenblatt, the Trump administration’s Middle East negotiator, has long-standing links to the current Israeli administration. He told me that in 2014 [sic] he organized some PR advice from Israel for Vox: “I personally brought it from the team that won the election for [Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

Vox's media presence hit off on October 7, 2018, when it held a major party event with more than 9,000 attendees at the Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid, attended, among others, by the bullfighter Morante de la Puebla, the writer Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Salvador Monedero, the journalists Luis del Pino and Hermann Tertsch.35

In 2018, Vox's vice president, Víctor González Coello de Portugal, was condemned for "accounting irregularities" in one of his companies, and was banned for three years from handling party finances.36

2019

In the days before the general elections in Spain in April 2019, CitizenGo's and HazteOir's "Vota Valores" campaign sent several buses through Spanish cities featuring quotes intended to belittle Vox's political opponents.

That year, OpenDemocracy embarked on an undercover investigation in Spain, which uncovered intimate links between CitizenGo, its Spanish-only precursor HazteOir, and Vox.13 These go well beyond the public endorsement of Vox by CitizenGo's president, Ignacio Arsuaga, as well as HazteOir.37 During this inquiry, Arsuaga admitted to have met with senior party officials to discuss common strategies, and also described how CitizenGo would "indirectly" support Vox. According to OpenDemocracy13 :

Our undercover reporter specifically asked Arsuaga how to get around Spanish campaign finance laws rules – donating more to Vox than the legal limit – and about doing so anonymously, which is against the law.

Arsuaga explained that there are no such limits on donations to groups like CitizenGo, and 'if you give privately to a non-profit there is no need to disclose that.' He said CitizenGo would not channel money to Vox itself but 'you could give to any foundation that doesn’t mind to give, to forward the money, to Vox... that would be a good option.'

'This is something we haven’t made public,' Arsuaga continued, 'but, in Spain, we’re going to launch a campaign before the general elections... where we are going to show bad things that have been said' by the leaders of parties that Vox is running against, for example 'In favour of abortion or in favour of LGBT laws' – describing since-released posters and adverts against candidates from other parties.

The Vox official that Arsuaga put our undercover reporter in touch with confirmed that supporting CitizenGo could help the party, 'indirectly,' describing them as independent but that 'we are actually currently totally aligned.' He told our reporter that while there is a limit on the size of individual donations to parties, 'there is not a limit on the number of donors, okay, it can be split among several donors… and they only have to register [their first] name, last name and the origin.'

'There are other ways of making support,' he added, describing 'a lack of regulation in terms of the equivalent of Super PACs in the United States, those institutions or organisations that give airtime or advertising in support of causes or candidates or political parties. I understand that that is outside of the limitations of the actual political parties which is very, very regulated.'

Super PACs don’t officially exist in Europe but he said 'there are movements to create those and I think they are unregulated' and 'Ignacio’s organisation, that’s kind of that.'

European Conservatives and Reformists

ECR Group member parties by country as of September 2023.

In the May 2019 European Parliament elections, Vox won three seats. The following month, Vox joined the right-wing to far-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group and party in the European Parliament.38 Hermann Tertsch, who received one of the seats, was appointed fifth Vice Chairman of the ECR Group2 ; Jorge Buxadé became the group's co-chairman.

ECR has its origins in the "European Conservative Group," which goes back to 1973, when the UK joined the European Community. Until Brexit, ECR was very much dominated by the UK Conservative Party, and after that steadily radicalized. As of September 2023, the ECR group is made up of 19, mostly far-right, parties, whose representatives currently hold 66 of 705 seats (ca. 9.4%) in the European Parliament. ECR largely collects staunch pro-NATO and anti-Russian parties, a distinguishing feature that has become more marked following the 2022 Ukraine invasion. [In contrast to Identity and Democracy, the second far-right European parliamentary group and party, which collects mostly parties sympathizing with Russia under Putin, such as the Alternative for Germany party or the French National Rally.] Besides Vox, the ECR group includes notably the far-right parties Fratelli d'Italia, Sweden Democrats, and the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party.

In 2019, the party managed to multiply its revenue by seven, with a revenue over 10 million euros, compared to 1.5 million in 2018.39 According to La Información, "The main contributions came from affiliates, members and supporters, who contributed a total of 4.6 million euros. Private donations, on the other hand, exceeded 1.5 million euros."39

2020

In 2020, the party registered assets of 11.5 million euro.40 Of the approximately 15 million euros, the party received that year, two thirds came from public funds, the majority through subsidies to Vox's parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies.41

Falange Española de las JONS

In February 2020, Jorge Buxadé became spokesperson of Vox, who is a confessing Falangist.42 In 1995, he ran for the European elections for the Falangist party, Falange Española de las JONS, and in the 1996 general elections he was the Falange candidate for Barcelona. Before joining Vox, from 2004 to 2014, he was attached to Partido Popular.

Fundación Disenso

In July 2020 Vox set up a think tank, Fundación Disenso, with Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader, serving as president.43 The name “Disenso” came from a group of the late 1980s and 1990s in Madrid that brought together students from universities with a neo-fascist and “anti-establishment” tendency. The early Disenso group was part of a loose structure called Bases Autónomas ("Autonomous Bases," BBAA), largely made up of football hooligans (Ultras) and racist skinheads operating in small cells.44 Labeled “anarcho-Nazi,” the early Disenso group ultimately merged into the Coordinadora de Estudiantes Nacional-Revolucionarios (CENR).45 And a number of leading BBAA members went on to join the CEDADE-linked political party National Democracy, groups sympathizing with the Falange, and other far-right organizations.46

Immediately before the foundation, in February 2020, Abascal had traveled to the United States together with Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, parliamentary spokesman for Vox, and they visited several think tanks related to the US Republican Party, including the Heritage Foundation, the International Republican Institute, and the American Conservative Union - suggesting that they may have been advised to set up such structure on that trip. Both, Espinosa and his Opus Dei-educated22 wife, Rocío Monasterio, have been identified as El Yunque members,21 the latter also serving as head of the Vox section in Madrid as well as spokesperson for HazteOir.

After the US trip, at a Vox congress in Vistalegre on March 8, 2020, Abascal expressed his intention to create a party think tank in order to broaden the outreach of the party in other social spheres and to expand its base. Established on July 2 that year, the organization was set out to offer improved political and leadership training to party officials, many of whom had just arrived in politics with little experience, as well as holding events, seminars and online courses for party cadets an laymen alike.47 Besides, it churns out studies and reports concerned with right-wing wedge issues of the day, particularly in its online magazine, La Gaceta de la Iberosfera. Although the composition of the board has been changing over the years, Abascal remains president of the think tank, while Jorge Martín Frías serves as attorney, who previously was attached to the right-wing Partido Popular.

Madrid Charter

In October 2020, Fundación Disenso concocted the Madrid Charter,48 a pamphlet aimed at uniting the radical right in Spain and Latin America against “narco-communism, the left and organized crime.”49

Delegates of Vox traveled throughout Latin America to promote and collect signatures for the manifesto, meeting with politicians in Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. While promoting the charter in Ecuador, Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch said that signatures were necessary to counter “narcosocialism,” arguing that “[a]ll Latin American countries are threatened by the same totalitarian project funded mainly by Venezuelan oil and drug trafficking,” which Tertsch said was guided by Cuba.50 According to an article by Swissinfo50 :

Tertsch was in Ecuador together with the vice president of Vox, Víctor González Coello de Portugal, on the occasion of the investiture of the center-right [Ecuadorian President] Guillermo Lasso, who has been supported by the Spanish right. Also at the ceremony were former president José María Aznar (96-2004) and the leader of the [Spanish] Popular Party, Pablo Casado, as private guests. The official delegation was headed by King Felipe VI, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya … Vox politicians remained in Ecuador to meet with the new defense minister, Fernando Donoso, former vice president Otto Sonnenholzner, and representatives of the Social Christian Party, Sociedad Unida Más Acción (SUMA), and others. … “We are very happy. Sonneholzner and the Defense Minister have signed, and we have recruited a lot of people from SUMA and the PSC,” he [Tertsch] highlighted about the initiative.

Besides, the charter has been signed by well-known far-right politicians, such as Santiago Abascal; far-right Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni; former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana and Eduardo Bolsonaro, who at the time doubled as spokesperson of Steve Bannon’s The Movement in Latin America.

The Madrid Charter from October 26, 2020

Solidaridad

In September 2020, Vox announced the creation of a union called Solidaridad, with the intention of attracting the workers' vote to its base. Abascal stated at the time that Solidaridad was set out to be "the main patriotic and anti-separatist union in Spain, the main anti-communist union and the main union against the corrupt oligarchies."51 According to El Periodico51 :

The union has presented 12 measures on which they will work. Some of them very controversial. Thus, among those measures one can find the intention to prioritize workers residing in Spain for access to jobs, "limiting illegal immigration to the real needs of the labor market and the immigrant's ability to adapt culturally" and " facilitate the repatriation of immigrants who cannot find employment."

Along the same lines, they maintain that it is necessary to "end illegal immigration promoted by the government together with certain NGOs" that use "immigrants as slave labor." In addition, they point to the need to end subsidies for unions and employers.

2021

In July 2021, party leader Abascal signed a statement about Europe's future that opposed the EU's "federalist drift" with Viktor Orbán (Prime Minister of Hungary and president of Fidesz), Marine Le Pen (President of the National Rally), Jarosław Kaczyński (leader of PiS and ex-Prime Minister of Poland), and Giorgia Meloni, among others.52

National Action Party of Mexico (PAN)

In September 2021, a meeting of Vox and National Action Party of Mexico (PAN) members, including Abascal and Hermann Tertsch, took place, which included a Legionaries of Christ priest.53 The 15 senators and three deputies from PAN, coordinated by Julen Rementería, subsequently signed the Madrid Charter.54 According to Agenda Propria53 :

Some of those who attended the meeting with the Spanish Santiago Abascal were the coordinator of the PAN members in the Senate, Julen Rementería, senators Víctor Fuentes, Marco Antonio Gama and Roberto Juan Moya Clemente, as well as senators Alejandra Reynoso, Guadalupe Murguía, Nadia Navarro, Indira Rosales, Mayuli Latifa, Gina Cruz, Minerva Hernández and Lily Téllez.

In Mexico, at least 7 people have signed into an alliance with the Madrid Charter: Alejandra Noemí Reynoso, Senator of the Republic of Mexico; Carlos Leal, a local deputy in Nuevo León; Elsa Méndez Álvarez, local deputy in Querétaro; Fernando Doval, Secretary of Studies and Strategic Analysis of the PAN; Pablo Adame, former Federal Deputy of the Mexican Republic. Mario Romo, president of Red Familia and actor Eduardo Verástegui who in recent years has carried out various campaigns with pro-life groups in Mexico and the United States.

2022

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Vox took a strong pro-Ukrainian stance, announcing its support of "all measures" to defend the country, including the shipment of arms.55

CPAC Hungary

In 2022, various Vox members appeared at CPAC events. In May 2022, Abascal appeared as a speaker at CPAC Hungary.56 In November of that year, he gave a speech at CPAC Mexico.57 Pictures of the events underline the close alliance between Vox and Latin American far-right leaders. For example, a picture from the 2022 Florida CPAC congress shows Vox's Hermann Tertsch, alongside Eduardo Bolsonaro and Eduardo Verástegui of CPAC Mexico.

2023

In May 2023, three Vox officials appeared at CPAC Hungary: Jorge Buxadé, Hermann Tertsch, and Santiago Abascal, who delivered a video message.58

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