Will far-right Vox play a role in Spain's next government?

Spain’s far-right Vox party has grabbed headlines in recent days following controversial proposals to ‘re-emigrate’ up to 8 million foreigners living in Spain, including second-generation migrants born in Spain with nationality.

The party has since rowed back on the idea, which was first floated by one spokeswoman, Rocío de Meer, with leader Santiago Abascal standing by the idea of deportations but refusing to put a firm figure on it.

READ ALSO: Vox proposes deporting more foreigners than are actually living in Spain

Extremist rhetoric is nothing new for the far-right party, but the comments have taken on a particular weight due to the current political context and the possibility of Vox playing a role in the next government. Vox has already governed at a regional level in coalitions with the centre-right Partido Popular (PP) across the country.

Spain’s Socialist (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been embroiled in corruption scandals in recent months, with several family members and former party officials investigated for corruption and influence peddling. All deny any wrongdoing, but the drip-feed of scandals has led the Spanish right to call for Sánchez’s resignation. Even some more moderate voices on the left have called for a general election.

That’s why Vox’s proposed re-emigration plan has had such coverage: the prospect of the Sánchez government falling and the reality of the far-right entering government for the first time in the history of Spanish democracy.

Polling suggests this is likely and that the PP will need Vox’s votes to gain the absolute majority necessary to govern. The new parliamentary spokesperson for the PP, Ester Muñoz, however, has insisted that the “PP wants a single-party government with parliamentary agreements” but with no formal coalition so that “there will be no Vox ministers.”

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has distanced his party from Vox's mass deportation policy and also stated recently that he intends to govern alone. However, the likely next Prime Minister did not rule out making arrangements or deals with other parties — all parties besides Basque separatists Bildu — but has ruled out formal coalition arrangements.

Few on the Spanish left believe this. Following a fiery day in the Spanish Congress, Sánchez’s parliamentary partners backed him by making the calculation that propping up his government is better than the risk of letting the far-right into power.

READ ALSO: What a Vox government could mean for foreigners in Spain

But what do the polls say? It’s important to understand the difference between blocs and coalitions in Spanish politics. The PP won the most votes in the general election of July 2023, but the broader right-wing bloc with Vox did not achieve a majority, so it was the PSOE that found enough partners willing to vote for it in the investiture vote, which then allowed it to form a government coalition with far-left Sumar.

Spain's Congress of Deputies has 350 seats and the votes cast by the electorate determine how many each political party wins. To achieve an absolute majority, a party must win half of the seats plus one. This means that if a party wants to govern, whether either alone or in a coalition, it needs to win more than half of the seats, so 176 seats.

According to the latest 40dB poll, the PP and Vox between them would win 48 percent of the vote compared to 37 percent for the PSOE, Sumar and other parties in the left-wing block. Politico polling puts the right-wing block at 49 percent, so voting intention suggests the Spanish right would be very close to governing if an election were to be held today.

In 2023 the right-wing block won by one point (45 percent to 44 percent) but that was not enough for a majority of seats as the left had more parliamentary partners. It would now win by around 11 percent if the polls are accurate. Feijóo’s decision to try and distance the PP from Vox is an effort to reassure wavering centrist voters and ensure a governable majority, experts say. In the latest CIS poll, 8.5 percent of people who intend to vote for the PSOE say that their second choice is the PP.

“I understand that it is part of the PP's strategy, which is to win as many votes as possible in the Congress of Deputies so as not to be strictly dependent on Vox in the investiture. I think it is a way of clarifying things and establishing what their intentions are,” El Mundo journalist Lucía Méndez writes.

“It is a brave stance, because without knowing what will happen after the elections, it's a risk that the PP is taking since if it does not have a sufficient majority and Abascal demands to enter the government, it will have to go back on its word,” she adds.

That the PP has refused to commit to an outright cordon sanitaire on allowing Vox into government, as other centre-right parties have around Europe, suggests that it would be a last resort but not something ruled out entirely.

Sánchez managed to cling onto power in 2023 by raising the spectre of the far-right and calling for a common front against it. If Vox continues making proposals like mass deportations, the party may actually play into this narrative.

Whatever happens, it seems certain that leader Santiago Abascal will have a big say in any future government, whether formally or informally.

READ ALSO: Vox calls for mass deportations and Spanish citizenship audit for foreigners