Yelling slogans like “freedom”, “resign”, and “Sanchez leave now”, and bearing Spanish flags and masks, protesters came out against the government’s handling of the pandemic. They called for a return to individual freedoms and a reopening of the economy to avoid turning Spain into a “Third World” country.
The demonstration, which was called by extreme right-wing party VOX, was held with citizens using their vehicles to ensure compliance with mandatory safety distances during the pandemic. Even so, many broke these measures by leaving their cars.
In the most recent general election on 10 November 2019, VOX won 52 seats and became the third-largest force in the Spanish Parliament. The party is growing and is accused of using nationalist, racist, and anti-feminist rhetoric to push its political messaging. Some of the measures it drafted in its 2019 electoral manifesto included outlawing political parties that “pursue the destruction of the territorial unity of the nation”, deporting illegal immigrants and excluding immigrants from the national health system, closing mosques, repealing the law on gender violence, banning abortions, and creating a Ministry for Families to protect “the natural family”.
In Plaza de Colón, a convertible bus was set up where the leaders of VOX, including party leader Santiago Abascal, were present.
Confinement measures were relaxed on 11 May in the hard-hit capital and small businesses could partially reopen under strict safety measures. However, the city is still only slowly opening up. VOX’s demonstration caused controversy due to the danger posed by crowds, the pollution caused by thousands of cars, the party-like atmosphere, and Abascal’s calls for all Spaniards to “take to the streets” during the ongoing pandemic. There was also tension when a journalist from La Razón was attacked by some of the demonstrators, and other journalists from RTVE were harassed.
The right to protest is written in the constitution, but the controversy arises from the exceptional situation in which the whole world finds itself. At the time of writing, Spain has 287,740 confirmed cases and 27,133 deaths from COVID-19.
This procession of cars was the high point of a number of anti-government protests that began on 14 May in the Salamanca neighborhood where over 70% of residents voted for right-wing and conservative parties in the last general election. Since then, every day at 9 pm, a number of citizens have taken to the streets or their balconies to bang pots and pans, demanding the government leader’s resignation — making the already tense political situation even worse.
Since Pedro Sánchez was sworn in as president on 7 January 2020, he began forming a coalition government with the leftist party Unidas Podemos. On social networks, the ultra-right is calling the government and its members “putschists“, “illegitimate”, and even “thugs“.
