A far-right party is making political waves in Spain by advocating looser gun control laws and recruiting retired military officers as candidates in a parliamentary election next month.
Vox party leader Santiago Abascal said Spaniards should be allowed to keep firearms at home and to use them in "real life-threatening situations" without fear of legal consequences. Spain currently allows civilians to possess guns only for sporting purposes.
"Our laws treat criminals like victims and honest citizens like criminals," Abascal told armas.es, a website specializing in weapons, in an interview Wednesday.
Abascal, 42, has bragged about carrying a handgun himself. The politician was born and raised in the northern Basque region, where his family was for years a target of separatist militant group ETA. He has a special gun license given on a case by case basis for professional or personal safety.
Public opinion polls are predicting Vox will win a significant number of seats in the House of Deputies, the lower chamber in Spain's parliament. The party said this week it had enlisted at least five former army generals to run in the April 28 election.
Two of the candidates signed a petition last year opposing moves by Spain's Socialist government to remove the body of Gen. Francisco Franco from a mausoleum where the 20th century dictator is honored.
Those who fear the rise of the far right in Spain say Vox is trying to attract votes with fear-mongering and by reviving the ghosts of Franco's 1939-1975 dictatorship. The party's campaign message is high on Spanish nationalism and what are regarded as traditional values, while its positions include opposing unauthorized migration and the demands of feminists.
But Vox faces an uphill battle to stir the arms debate in a country with lower homicide and burglary rates than most of its European neighbors. Some Vox members have linked violence against women and other crimes to the arrival in Spain of large numbers of migrants, though they haven't offered statistical evidence to back the claims.
Laws in Spain are strict in requiring military staff to be politically neutral, but they face no limitations once they retire. The anti-austerity Podemos party had a former head of the armed forces, Julio Rodríguez, run for parliament in 2015, but he wasn't elected.
One Vox candidate, Alberto Asarta, is a decorated general with a long career in international missions, including a two-year stint leading the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
Last year, Asarta and another general who is now running under the Vox banner joined nearly 200 military reservists in signing a public petition defending Franco's legacy.
Their manifesto justified the dictator's 1936 uprising, which triggered a bloody three-year Civil War. It also criticized Spain's center-left government for ordering Franco's remains to be exhumed and relocated from the glorifying Valley of the Fallen mausoleum to a more discrete location.
The government has ordered the exhumation to be carried out on June 10. The Spanish Supreme Court is considering appeals filed by Franco's relatives and the abbot charged with guarding his tomb.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed satisfaction on Monday after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor.
Candidates from his pro-European Union centrist Civic Coalition, or running with the party's backing, won in a series of cities in the second round of local elections held on Sunday, among them Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Rzeszow.
“It is very difficult to clearly say who won and who lost,” Tusk said Monday. “But if we compare these results, especially in the most attractive places, on these attractive battlefields ... then I actually have reasons for satisfaction.”
“Law and Justice has simply disappeared in many places,” Tusk added at a news conference, referring to the main opposition party.
The results put Civic Coalition in a favorable position as the country looks next to elections to the European Parliament on June 9.
Mayors were chosen in a total of 748 cities and towns where no single candidate won at least 50% of the vote during the first round on April 7.
Candidates for Tusk’s party also recaptured cities where they had not held power for many years, including Zielona Gora, Legnica and Torun.
The local and regional elections were viewed as a test for Tusk's pro-European Union government four months after it took power at the national level. Sunday's second round strengthened the Tusk government's leverage in the cities, which should facilitate cooperation on development projects and allotment of EU funds.
Tusk's allies also won in some places in the first round two weeks ago, including in Warsaw, where incumbent Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was an easy victor.
In the first round, the right-wing Law and Justice, prevailed on the level of regional assemblies in the country's 16 provinces, where it took 34.3% of the votes, while Tusk's Civic Coalition got 30.6%. Law and Justice governed on the national level from 2015-23.
Tusk’s socially liberal Civic Coalition traditionally has strong support in cities, while Law and Justice has a more solid base in conservative rural areas, particularly in eastern Poland.
Civic Coalition is the largest group in a three-party coalition that governs the EU nation of 38 million people. The coalition is pro-European Union but otherwise spans a wide ideological spectrum with left-wing politicians in the Left party as well as conservatives in the Third Way.
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Campaign posters promote candidates as Poles vote in local and regional elections in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Polish voters take part in a local runoff election in Lomianki, near Warsaw, Poland on Sunday, April 21, 2024. Voters are choosing mayors who did not win outright in the first round of the election two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
FILE - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacts during his and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting with students in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk is celebrating a victory on Monday April 22, 2024 after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
FILE - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk listens to the media in Berlin, Germany, Friday, March 15, 2024. Tusk is celebrating a victory on Monday April 22, 2024 after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
