After the regional and local elections on May 28, the far-right VOX party joined 140 municipal councils and chaired four autonomous parliaments.
VOX has also reached an agreement with the People’s Party (PP, right) to run the region of the Valencian Community in a coalition, as has been the case in Castile and León since last year.
Meanwhile, national parliamentary elections are scheduled for July 23, with the polls offering the possibility of repeating the scenario at the national level, namely a governing coalition between PP and VOX.
Spain is thus in the middle of the election period and the International LGBTI+ Pride Day was marked in the country this Wednesday by the rise of VOX, as the party has vetoed, in places and regions where it is now part of governments, the display of the rainbow flag in public buildings where it is usually officially placed on this date.
VOX’s ban on the flag eventually led to confrontations with left-wing parties.
This is what happened in the parliament building of Castile and León, where for the second year the president of the assembly banned the placing of the flag, but the socialist deputies (PSOE) decided to do it in the windows of the chambers of the parliamentary group.
The president of the regional parliament (Carlos Pollán, VOX) formally requested the socialists to remove the flag, which was several meters tall, and threatened to send security forces to carry out the order. The leader of the PSOE parliamentary group, Luis Tudanca, refused to remove the flag, saying it will remain in the same spot until the end of today.
A similar episode was repeated in the municipal building of Valladolid, the capital of Castile and León, governed until this year by the socialists, but now in the hands of a PP/VOX alliance.
The succession of news about the removal or non-display of the LGBTI+ flag in public buildings this Wednesday provoked a succession of criticism from leaders of the PSOE and other left-wing parties, who have focused on the threat of VOX entering the national government. the election campaign.
The PP leaders in turn underlined the party’s support for the fight for equal rights for LGBTI+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex and others).
“We celebrate the recognition of diversity and that everyone decides who they want to join them in their lives. Happy Pride Day”wrote PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Twitter.
The party also decided to illuminate the national headquarters in Madrid with the colors of the rainbow for the first time this Wednesday evening.
VOX leader Santiago Abascal said he saw no reason to celebrate or mark this day.
“I suppose because I am heterosexual, but I also think that there are many homosexuals who do not celebrate this day because they do not reduce their personality and their being to their sexual orientation”he said in an interview with TVE television.
PSOE leader and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, displaying a bracelet and a rainbow bow, today called for the celebration of the International Day of LGBTI+ Pride so that there is no backsliding of rights in Spain, deploring that “PP and VOX must stop their biases within the institutions”.
Sánchez also reiterated that the PP and VOX agreements in municipalities and regions in the past 20 days translate into “20 years of misfortune” in terms of ideas and speeches, with, for example, the election of presidents of regional parliaments in the far right dispelling vaccine deniers. and climate change, who are anti-abortion activists or who say that gender violence does not exist.
Source: DN
