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VOX (Political party, Spain)

Flag of VOX, two versions - Images by Tomislav Todorović, 28 November 2018

Presentation of VOX
Symbols of VOX

See also:

Spain

Presentation of VOX

VOX (Latin, "voice") was created in 12 December 2013 "to renovate and increase the Spanish democratic life, with an aim of increasing the cohesion of the Nation, to improve the efficiency of the State, to improve the quality of the institutions, to verify the honesty of public persons and to foster economical growth to the benefit of all citizens".
To promote "the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation and the grant of national sovereignty to the Spanish people", VOX proposes to suppress the Autonomous Communities and to establish "a strong and efficient, administratively decentralized state able to accommodate and to recognize the historical and cultural plurality of the Nation".
[Founding Manifesto]

VOX was established by members of the righter wing of the PP, "disenchanted and disappointed by Mariano Rajoy's non-accomplishment of the PP electoral program". The founders of VOX are José Antonio Ortega Lara, a former prisoner of ETA, who left the PP in 2008, Ignacio Camuñas, an historical leader of the old UCD, and Santiago Abascal, a former leader of the Basque branch of the PP. This was the second official split in the PP; in the 2000s, Juan Ramón Calero and Carlos Ruiz Soto founded the Partido Demócrata Español, which was disbanded in 2008.
[El Confidencial, 15 January 2014]
VOX experienced an internal crisis in spring 2014, when Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who had left on 27 January 2014 the PP for VOX, resigned from VOX, together with Camuñas and several members of the party's National Executive Committee. Santiago Abascal was elected the new president of the party in a vote considered as rigged by his opponents.
[El Mundo, 16 September 2014]
In June 2016, VOX gained some public attention when a commando displayed a 200-m long Spanish flag in Gibraltar. The President of the Madrid branch of VOX, Nacho Mínguez, and the party's lawyer, the writer Pedro Fernández, were arrested by the Royal Police and detained for a few days. Abascal complained that the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not seriously acted to obtain their quick release.
[Libertad Digital, 22 June 2016]

On 10 September 2018, Juan Antonio Morales, Secretary General of the PP branch of Badajoz, who had been elected on 6 July 2018 at the Parliament of Extremadura, left the PP for VOX, offering to the party its first representative in a regional parliament.
[Région Digital, 10 September 2018]
VOX remained considered as a marginal party with little audience but in the ultra-conservative circles until the meeting held by the party on 7 October 2018 in the Vistalegre Palace, Madrid. The party rallied some 10,000 supporters to prepare the 2019 general elections.
While Abascal presents the party as "central-right liberal", the program unveiled in Madrid showed its true colors, beyond reasonable doubt, as did ultra-nationalist, Islamophobic, anti-feminist and homophobic mottoes shout by their supporters.
[El Confidencial, 7 October 2018; El Mundo, 7 October 2018]

VOX clearly aspires to follow the model of other extreme-rightist European parties and to occupy the niche left vacant by the "traditional" Spanish extreme-rightist parties that keep defending a nostalgic vision of the Francoist state. VOX' main campaign motto "Spaniards First" is a straightforward translation of "French First", the motto used in the past by the Front National and recently revamped to "France and the French First".
In January 2017, Abascal participated to the "Liberty for Europe" summit held in Coblenz (Germany), where he met his European counterparts: Marine Le Pen (Front National, France), Frauke Petry (AfD, Germany) and Geert Wilders (PPV, Netherlands) and Matteo Salvini (Liga, Italy).
[Party website, 21 January 2017]

Ivan Sache, 23 November 2018

Flag of VOX

The flag of VOX is green with the white letters "VOX" (photo, photo, photo, photo). The party also uses a white flag with the green letters "VOX" (photo, photo, photo).

Ivan Sache, 23 November 2018