Santiago Abascal Explained

Santiago Abascal
Honorific-Suffix:MP
Office:President of Vox
Term Start:20 September 2014
Vicepresident:Jorge Buxadé
Predecessor:José Luis González Quirós
Office1:Member of the Congress of Deputies
Term Start1:21 May 2019
Constituency1:Madrid
Office2:Director of the Data Protection Agency of the Community of Madrid
Term Start2:4 February 2010
Term End2:28 December 2012
President2:Esperanza Aguirre
Predecessor2:Antonio Troncoso
Successor2:Position abolished
Office3:Member of the Basque Parliament
Term Start3:4 October 2005
Term End3:6 January 2009
Constituency3:Álava
Term Start4:16 January 2004
Term End4:22 February 2005
Constituency4:Álava
Office6:Member of the General Assembly of Álava
Term Start6:13 June 2003
Term End6:3 February 2005
Constituency6:Vitoria
Office7:Member of the City Council of Llodio
Term Start7:13 June 1999
Term End7:16 June 2007
Birth Name:Santiago Abascal Conde
Birth Date:14 April 1976
Birth Place:Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain
Party:Vox (since 2014)
Father:Santiago Abascal Escuza
Spouse:
Children:4
Alma Mater:University of Deusto
Signature:SantiagoAbascalSignature.svg
Otherparty:People's Party (1994–2013)

Santiago Abascal Conde (pronounced as /es/; born 14 April 1976) is a Spanish politician and since September 2014 the leader of the right-wing political party Vox. Abascal is a member of the Congress of Deputies representing Madrid since 2019. Before the creation of Vox, Abascal was long a member of the centre-right People's Party, served as legislator in the Basque Parliament, founded the Spanish nationalist Foundation for the Defense of the Spanish Nation (or DENAES) and exerted the role of director of publicly funded entities of the Community of Madrid.

Biography

Early life

Abascal was born in Bilbao. He descends from a line of prominent politicians in the Province of Álava: his father Santiago Abascal Escuza was a politician and a member of the People's Party, and his grandfather Manuel Abascal Pardo was the mayor of Amurrio from 1963 to 1979, during the dictatorship of Franco and Spanish transition to democracy.[1] [2] [3] [4] Because of their political work, Abascal's family was routinely threatened by the terrorist group ETA.[5]

Political career

Abascal became a member of the People's Party when he was 18, in 1994.[6] [7] He was city councillor of Llodio for two terms (1999–2007).[8] He served in the Basque Parliament from January 2004 to February 2005 representing Álava.[9] He later served again in the regional legislature from October 2005 to January 2009.[10]

After he left Basque politics, Esperanza Aguirre, the regional president of the Community of Madrid, hired him for the post of director of the Data Protection Agency of the Community of Madrid (2010–2012). Abascal was later appointed to another post as Director of the Foundation for Patronage and Social Sponsorship (2013), a publicly funded entity without known activity during Abascal's spell.[11] [12]

Abascal left the PP in 2013 and helped to found a new party, Vox, which was formed on the same day that the Foundation for Patronage and Social Sponsorship dissolved.[13] After Vox's bad result in the May 2014 European Parliament election in which it failed to obtain any seats, inner strife followed between a faction represented by party members such as Ignacio Camuñas, José Luis González Quirós and Alejo Vidal-Quadras, and a hardline faction, featuring Abascal along with other figures of the DENAES Foundation.[14] The moderate faction became estranged from the party, and Abascal became the new president on 20 September 2014.[15]

Abascal is a member of the Congreso de los Diputados representing Madrid since May 2019. His party came third in the election for the 14th Congreso, characterized by the BBC as a "far-right surge".[16]

During the 2020 and 2021 electoral campaigns for regional elections in the Basque Country and Catalonia, multiple electoral events featuring Abascal as one of the speakers were attacked by political opponents on the premises of Vox's electoral events in the provinces being acts of provocation.[17] [18] [19]

Political positions

Abascal's political programme for 2018 includes the expulsion of all illegal immigrants, the construction of "impassable walls" in the Spanish African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the prohibition of the teaching of Islam, the exaltation of "national heroes", the elimination of all regional parliaments and opposition to Catalan nationalism.[20] He used anti-Muslim rhetoric in 2019 and called for a new Reconquista or reconquest of Spain.[21]

He has also expressed disappointment towards Morocco and how it handles the border by allowing illegal immigrants to cross. This has led to conversations about the status of Spanish Sahara. Abascal has expressed a different way to handle it (unlike the other parties that favor abandoning it to Morocco); that the people of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic have the right to self determination, with the hopeful outcome of choosing to remain and integrate as the Spanish Sahara.

Abascal promotes climate change denial and believes that global warming is the "greatest swindle in history".[22] He is opposed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals referred to as Agenda 2030.[23]

On economic issues, he claims the legacy of 1996–2004 Prime Minister José Maria Aznar of the People's Party, and supports an economic liberal and fiscal conservative line, including a sharp reduction in public spending.[24]

Abascal criticized Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez's unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, saying that it amounts to legitimising the "satanic terrorism" of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group responsible for the October 7 attacks.[25] He further criticized Sanches for knowing "nothing of Israel's history".[26] Months before, the Spanish prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation following Abascal's suggestion during an interview with the Argentine newspaper Clarín that a time might come when people would want to “hang [Sánchez] by the feet.”[27]

Personal life

He first married Ana Belén Sánchez, who was herself a PP candidate in local elections in Llodio and Zuia; they had two children. They subsequently divorced.[28] In June 2018, he married the Spanish blogger and influencer Lidia Bedman.[29] He had two children with Bedman.[30] Abascal is a longtime member of the Spanish Ornithological Society.[31] Abascal is an affiliate of the ultraconservative association HazteOir (HO) and was the recipient of a HO Award in 2012.[32]

Due to recurrent death threats for his political views and work, Abascal is licensed to carry and use a handgun for self-defence.[33] Namely, the license type B, granted to civilians proved to experience a real and high risk of being attacked. Under strict Spanish gun laws, such licenses are rare, as only about 0.02% of the population own them.[34]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Abascal, el 'ex' del PP que lleva la extrema derecha a la política nacional . . 16 January 2019 . 3 December 2018 . es.
  2. News: Muere Santiago Abascal, exdirigente del PP vasco y padre del líder de VOX . . 16 January 2019 . 23 July 2017 . es . Vitoria.
  3. News: Santiago Abascal: un ultra con sueldo y pistola . Los Genoveses . 27 April 2019 . 1 May 2019 . . es.
  4. News: November 11, 2019. Santiago Abascal: su pasado, su familia, sus dos mujeres y sus aficiones. Voz Populi.
  5. News: Veiga. Diego Rodriguez. 9 November 2020. Abascal revive sus dos dramas con ETA: el ataque familiar y el asesinato de su amigo cartero. El Español.
  6. ¿Quién es Santiago Abascal, líder del partido Vox?. 20minutos. Óscar. Gutiérrez. 5 December 2018.
  7. Santiago Abascal, el fan de Marine Le Pen. El País. Rubén. Amón. 3 December 2018.
  8. Santiago Abascal: del PP vasco a sacudir la política española en Andalucía. La Vanguardia. 3 December 2018.
  9. News: La post-España de Santiago Abascal . Javier . García Martín . 28 April 2019 . 1 May 2019 . . es.
  10. Web site: Santiago Abascal Conde . 2019 . 1 May 2019 . . es . https://web.archive.org/web/20190421142854/https://www.voxespana.es/biblioteca/espana/cen/santiago-abascal-condegal_fb06d8190415092018.pdf . 21 April 2019.
  11. La fundación que dirigió Abascal se extinguió sin dejar rastro de su último año de actividad . Sofía . Pérez Mendoza . 13 January 2019 . eldiario.es.
  12. Santiago Abascal se 'forra' al amparo del PP madrileño . Cecilia . Guzmán . El Plural . 6 November 2013.
  13. La Marea. Manual de VOX para antifascistas emocionales. Antonio. Maestre. Antonio Maestre. 9 December 2018.
  14. . Los tránsfugas de Abascal. Sergio . Sangiao . 23 January 2019.
  15. Web site: Santiago Abascal, nuevo presidente de Vox con el 91% de los votos . Publico.es . 20 September 2014 . 16 January 2019.
  16. News: 11 November 2019 . Spanish elections: Socialists win amid far-right surge . . London, U.K. . 7 December 2019.
  17. Web site: Vox arranca la campaña en Euskadi con mítines blindados entre piedras y botellas. 26 June 2020.
  18. Web site: Lanzan piedras a Abascal en un acto de Vox en Girona. 30 January 2021.
  19. Web site: Intento de agresión a Abascal en un acto electoral en Gerona. 30 January 2021.
  20. Web site: Santiago Abascal, l'homme derrière le retour de l'extrême droite en Espagne. Le Parisien. Henry. de Laguérie. 14 November 2019. 20 January 2021. fr.
  21. Web site: Spain's far-right makes election gains using anti-Muslim sentiment . The National. Kira. Walker . 29 April 2019.
  22. Web site: Déni du réchauffement, mépris pour les renouvelables, haine des réfugiés climatiques : le "fascisme fossile". bastamag.net. Sophie. Chapelle. 22 October 2020. 20 January 2021. fr.
  23. News: Abascal . Santiago . Santiago Abascal denuncia la sumisión de Pedro Sánchez ante Marruecos: "¿Por qué razón lo hace?" . YouTube . VOX España . 19 April 2023.
  24. Web site: Santiago Abascal, l'homme au pistolet qui a ressuscité l'extrême droite espagnole. Le Point. 28 April 2019. 20 January 2021. fr.
  25. Web site: VOX Opposes Spanish Socialists’ Decision on Palestine . 2024-07-07 . The Conservative . en.
  26. Web site: Leader of Spain's Vox party criticizes Sánchez over Palestinian state recognition. en.
  27. Web site: Spain’s far-right Vox leader probed over ‘hang’ Pedro Sánchez diatribe . 2024-07-07 . Politico . en.
  28. Web site: Así es la primera mujer de Santiago Abascal: la expolítica con la que compartió partido y desahucio. El Plural. 25 January 2020. es. 25 January 2020.
  29. News: La boda cool de Santiago Abascal (VOX) con la bloguera Lidia Bedman este verano . C. . Villar . 9 October 2018 . 1 May 2019 . . es . Titania Compañía Editorial, S.L..
  30. Web site: Así es Lidia Bedman, la pareja 'egoblogger' de Santiago Abascal, líder de VOX. 30 March 2016. La Vanguardia. 16 January 2019.
  31. News: Abascal: un aficionado a los pájaros casado con una 'influencer' . 27 November 2018 . 16 January 2019 . . es . Radio Popular S.A..
  32. Web site: Las conexiones de Vox con HazteOir, los 'kikos' y una docena de obispos españoles . Bastante . Jesús . 7 December 2018 . eldiario.es . es.
  33. News: 18 June 2020. El permiso tipo B que tiene Abascal: ¿qué armas permite llevar, qué requisitos tiene y cómo se concede?. 20 Minutos.
  34. News: Verdu. Daniel. 25 October 2016. Who are Spain's gun owners?. El Pais.