Ahead of Spain’s elections on 23 July, the election campaign debates have focused on how far-right Vox (ECR) and right-wing PP (EPP) approach gender violence, where VOX denies its existence altogether and PP affirms it is a priority while slashing the term from coalition agreements.
On 16 June, the leader of VOX’s Valencian branch affirmed that “gender violence does not exist, male violence does not exist”, which caused an uproar in public opinion, resulting in political clashes focusing on VOX or PP’s approach to gender violence.
However, VOX denying gender violence altogether appears to have taken a toll on PP, which struck coalition agreements with the far-right party in several regions and cities. In the case of Valencia, the term gender violence was substituted by “intrafamilial” violence.
On several occasions in recent days, PP chief Alberto Núñez Feijóo has stressed that his party does not deny the gender violence problem exists.
“Gender-based violence is a truism, and it should not be a matter of concern that the obvious is not in the texts”, Feijóo said on radio Cadena SER. He further argued that in the Valencian coalition agreement, there is not a “single comma” that “goes against or questions the (fight against) male violence”.
On Tuesday, PP’s regional branch leader in Extremadura María Guardiola affirmed that she would not strike any deal with far-right VOX, “even if that would lead to repeating elections”.
“I cannot enter the government those who deny violence against women”, she said.
Equality policies down the drain
But despite Feijóo’s clarifications and Guardiola’s firm stance, the PP and VOX have fulfilled their promises of hampering equality policies in some regions or municipalities where they will govern together.
Examples are the city councils of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, Ciudad Real and Orihuela (Alicante), where they have eliminated equality councillors, which will be replaced by “family councillors”, following the agreements reached between the two parties.
On Tuesday, the Spanish Minister of Education Pilar Alegría described it as “shameful” that Feijóo “banished” gender violence in the –so far- 187 pacts he has concluded with VOX and “justifies” it by reducing it to the expression of “a tough divorce”, mentioning Carlos Flores, a VOX candidate for the Valencian regional government convicted of violence against his wife.
On Monday, VOX gave another sign of their ideology after the far-right party’s president, Santiago Abascal, rejected the term “gender violence”, which he described as an “ideological concept”, according to public broadcaster RTVE.
Feijóo: the socialists’ fault
In a strategic turn, PP chief Feijóo assured on Tuesday that more “damage” can be avoided and that it is possible to prevent VOX’s “monsters” from entering the government.
The key to avoiding VOX is for PSOE and Sánchez to abstain in a possible investiture vote if PP were to win the elections on 23 July, facilitating Feijóo’s government formation without the need for the far-right force.
“The Socialist Party has no problem with Vox governing, what the PSOE wants is for the PP not to govern, let’s not be naïve (…) if the PSOE does not want Vox to govern, it is very simple: abstain”, the PP leader told radio Cadena SER.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es – Edited by Max Griera)
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