Spain: right-wing mobilise as pandemic hits the poor

Main article image: Former King of Spain Juan Carlos (L) meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (R) in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi [Twitter/Saudi Foreign Ministry]

The scandal swirling around the Spanish monarchy continues to expose the fault-lines of the country’s manufactured ‘constitutional regime’ that was introduced in 1978 at the end of the dictatorship of General Franco. In August 2020, the former King, Juan Carlos, fled the country (apparently with the tacit agreement of Spain’s socialist prime minister) as he faced prosecution over corruption charges alleging that he enriched himself from illegal businesses with corrupt foreign entrepreneurs exposed by the ‘Panama Papers’. One week after they set up an offshore company in the tax haven of Panama, his account in Geneva received €100m. In November 2020, the supreme court opened a new investigation into money laundering and corruption against the former king.

A corrupt monarchy

Juan Carlos can only be held criminally accountable for his activities since he abdicated in 2014 (in order to save the institution of the monarchy). However, he has stolen millions for decades. He has a cosy relationship with the Saudi sheikhs who have oil contracts with Spain, providing the king with juicy commissions for 40 years. He was already under investigation over a £6.7bn contract to build a high-speed train to Mecca. In return, in the last two years Spanish ports have been offered as loading bays for ships with weapons for the Saudi regime to slaughter civilians in Yemen.

For weeks, nobody knew where he was. It eventually emerged the former king was enjoying exile in the United Arab Emirates – a country, conveniently, with no extradition agreement with Switzerland, where the fraud prosecution is being investigated. No doubt he will try to pay off a token amount of his ill-gotten gains to satisfy the courts, while hiding a fortune made over decades, in order to try to prevent the scandal engulfing his successor, the current King Felipe. Such impunity is inevitable given the Spanish constitution, cobbled together as a sop to die-hard Francoists and nationalists and enshrining the privileges of the monarchy, the army and the deeply reactionary Catholic church. The army remains profoundly attached to the old regime. For example, on 25 November 2020, 73 retired military personnel signed a letter to King Felipe asking for his intervention and that of the army to prevent an alleged ‘attempt at a socialist dictatorship led by the government’ – in response to the  Podemos-PSOE coalition budget that passed through Parliament with the support of Basque and Catalan nationalists. In the face of the economic and health crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic, it allocated a record 52.6% to social expenditure and included €9bn in emergency funds from the European Union. A few days later, in an online chat among the military, some claimed the need ‘to have a coup and shoot 26 million bastards to straighten out the situation’.

The authoritarian nature of this monarchical state is reflected in the case of the Catalan rapper Pablo Hasel, who has just lost his appeal against his conviction in November for ‘insulting the Crown and its armed forces’ in his lyrics. He is also accused of ‘glorifying terrorism’ for supporting the national liberation groups ETA and GRAPO, and has been given ten days to present himself to prison, where he faces at least a year in jail in addition to having to serve a two year suspended sentence for a similar conviction three years ago.

Right wing exploits pandemic crisis

The governing social democratic coalition has been forced to extend subsidies for temporary lay-offs until May, to prevent more widespread poverty and the threat of renewed social unrest. However, hundreds of thousands of people are yet to receive the benefit, with migrants, young people and women taking the greatest hit. Relative poverty has risen from 20.7% to 22.9% of the population, and more than five million have been forced into severe poverty, defined as having less than €16 a day to live on. GDP has fallen an estimated 12.4%.

The emergency coronavirus provisions brought in under Spain’s ‘state of alarm’ included a ban on evictions until 4 June 2020. But between 4 and 30 June, courts granted 1,384 evictions of vulnerable families. The PSOE – under pressure from its Podemos partners and other groups – only agreed, reluctantly, to reinstate the eviction ban in December 2020. In theory, the measure forbids evictions and the cutting off of basic supplies (water, gas, electricity) until 9 May 2021.

It is no wonder in this context that nationalist and right-wing parties are making gains in Spain, using general disaffection of sections of the population in the face of what they see as the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. The far-right party Vox seems quick to copy the methods of Donald Trump, using symbolism and patriotism to hide its reactionary agenda. It operates widely within social networks, which it sees as an important battleground to spread xenophobic ideas, anti-feminism and class prejudice, and to whitewash Franco’s fascist dictatorship. In October 2020, Vox pushed for a vote of no confidence in President Pedro Sánchez, but not even its allies were ready to support such a move. A right-wing alliance between Partido Popular, Ciudananos and Vox governs in Madrid and Andalusia, where its class politics are exposed. For instance, while restrictions to movement are strictly enforced between provinces during the pandemic, an exception is made if the traveller happens to be in possession of a hunter’s ID card or a valid ski pass. Throughout the pandemic, these right wing forces been able to critique the government’s handling of the crisis while covering up their own role in refusing to invest in public health care in the regions they govern and mismanaging private care homes, where many people died of Covid-19. Ironically, in protests called by these forces against the ‘State of Alarm’ called by the government to manage the pandemic, these Francoists accused ‘the socialists’ of riding roughshod over the rights enshrined in the 1978 constitution and imposing authoritarian rule.

Juanjo Rivas