Guardiola Shuts Up on Ruling with Vox & more –29th June 2023

Buenos días from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Spain Update from the 29th of June twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Spain.

There have been quite a few sudden u-turns this week, and none bigger than María Guardiola's, the People's Popular Party leader in Extremadura.

After her strong comments against ruling with the far-right-leaning party Vox led by Santiago Abascal in Extremadura last week, Guardiola has been told to lower her tone to avoid media noise, as it makes the PP look bad amid the upcoming General elections. Since then, she has rectified her comments, reassuring voters that she "is aware that respect and dialogue...in Extremadura is essential," further adding that both parties share a common goal in reversing socialist policies.

Another reason for her sudden change of heart could also be because of a leaked audio message by Guardiola's former PR advisor Santiago Martínez-Vares.

In the leaked audio, Martínez-Vares, who works for PR company Rebellious Words, told a Sevillan Vox councilor that his only aim in life is to "end the party led by Santiago Abascal." Since then, Rebellious Words has announced its separation from María Guardiola.

While Extremadura continues with leadership struggles, Vox has announced its candidate to preside over the autonomous Valencian government.

On Monday, the 26th, Vox leader Santiago Abascal announced that Llanos Massó will be the new president of the Valencian Parliament with a total of fifty-three votes, forty of which came from regional PP deputies and thirteen from Vox. Massó is openly anti-choice and considers herself very religious. She has also criticized the former regional Executive many times regarding its legislation about how sex education is taught in schools and other traditional preoccupations of the right.

On the same day, over 200 women from various Valencian feminist groups banded together to protest against this government agreement, shouting, "Fascists out of the institutions."

Continuing with Vox, political parties increase their advertising efforts as part of the pre-electoral campaign. Vox has annoyed lots of people with theirs.

The Madrid Zone Electoral Board told Vox on Monday the 26th that they have twenty-four hours to remove a giant poster they hung on the side of Casa de las Bolas on Calle de Alcalá in the city center. The poster depicts a hand wearing a bracelet with the Spanish flag and a piece of trash in its hand. Underneath the poster are symbols of everything the party opposes or is critical of, like feminism, the LGTBIQ+ flag, and the flag representing Catalan independence movement going into the trash, with the slogan "Decide what matters."

Although this type of content isn't illegal, the Madrid board says it is unnecessarily provocative. It also violates the rulings against electoral propaganda, as many oppositional politicians warn the messages from the poster do nothing to promote "peaceful coexistence" and could increase hate crimes.

While Vox and the PP band together in regional areas, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, or PSOE, is trying to rehabilitate the image of the current president, Pedro Sanchez, through its pre-election campaigns of debates, talk shows, and new policies

After the local election and regional election results, it is clear that Sanchez has lost traction and support. The socialist image could have been damaged because of his Government's controversial "yes is yes law," supposed pacts with Morocco, and PSOE connections with the Catalan independence movement and the Basque party Bildu, just to name a few reasons. Still, with the General elections on the 23rd of July, some ask if there is time to recover?

One person who isn't struggling is Alberto Núñez Feijóo, or so it seems.

On Wednesday, the 28th, Feijóo, leader of the PP, joined the El Hormiguero TV program on the Antena 3 Program to discuss his party's position for the upcoming General elections. The interview achieved a historical record, reaching just over three million views. In contrast, Sanchez's interview last week reached around 2 million.

Both leaders are now gearing up for their face-to-face debate on the 10th of July.

The political landscape is heating up, and so is the weather.

In May of this year, The Ministry of Health introduced a national plan for preventative actions to combat the effects of excessive temperatures on people's health, which will be in place until the 30th of September. As part of these measures, the ministry aims to establish regional reference thresholds for maximum and minimum temperatures, as temperatures affect each region differently. Alerts will be issued if a region reaches its maximum or minimum temperature. The main hope of these measures is to unify information on alerts for higher temperatures through a health and climate change observatory.

Speaking of new measures, considering the Government is mid-campaign, they are delaying plans to remove the mandatory use of face masks in hospitals and pharmacies.

Since February twenty twenty-three, using face masks on public transport hasn't been mandatory. However, it has been in healthcare centers, pharmacies, and hospitals.

On Friday, the 23rd, The Spanish National Health System announced its support for withdrawing the mandatory use of masks in health centers, hospitals, pharmacies, and other social health centers, while keeping its mandatory use in areas of hospitals with critically ill or vulnerable patients. Still, at the moment, the rules remain the same.

It has been a year since the fatal Melilla-Spain border crossing in Spain's North African enclave, where at least twenty-three people died and more are missing.

A year later, both sides of the border remained tight-lipped about what happened when around 2,000 migrants attempted to cross from Melilla into Spain. The Moroccan and Spanish governments said migrants died after falling from fences, and people suffocated from a stampede. However, privately obtained footage also showed police forcibly moving people along with batons, footage of tear gas, and injured people lying on the floor without medical attention, which increased the death toll.

In response to the lack of answers, hundreds of protestors rallied on Saturday the 24th near Melilla to demand justice. There were also demonstrations in Barcelona and Madrid. Since the fatal crossing, many NGOs have demanded answers from both Governments. Amnesty International says the "failure to investigate the disaster properly violates human rights and international law," and neither Spain nor Morocco has released information about the dead or missing to their loved ones.

On that note about borders, ties between Spain and the UK are still tense over what to do with a border between Spain and the UK overseas territory of Gibraltar amid Brexit negotiations.

Spain refuses to recognize British sovereignty labeling the territory as "the last colony in Europe," and ownership flares could be brewing. This causes extreme disruption to the thousands of cross-border workers who pass through every day. If a hard border is enforced, it would be more difficult and expensive for these workers to pass through. Without Gibraltar, workers would also find it quite difficult to find a decently paid job as the south of Spain has some of the highest levels of unemployment.

Want to find out more about this story? Link in show notes.

Moving on to ethics, plans for the world's first commercial octopus farm are underway in Spain. However, as more research explores the intelligence and curiosity of Octopuses, can mass octopus farms remain ethical?

That's the aim of Spanish seafood company and specialist Nueva Pescanova. In its research facilities in Galicia, nine tanks are filled with Octopus Vulgaris, the common octopus. Every day, teams of biologists test how slight variations in light levels, nutrition, and other conditions affect these invertebrates as they want to find out whether high-welfare octopus farming is possible.

Still, of course, there are many controversies, as many argue that farming a "curious, affectionate, and exploratory" animal would be unethical and environmentally unstable.

Want to know more? Link in show notes.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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¡Hasta la próxima!