Spain is no longer an exception to the rightward trend of European politics in reaction to mass immigration from the Middle East and North Africa. From the Financial Times:
The success of the far-right Vox in winning 12 seats in Andalucia’s 109-seat regional parliament on Sunday has upended the country’s already fractured electoral politics.
The centre-left PSOE — the party of Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister — is likely to lose its control of the region, Spain’s most populous, after holding power there for 36 years.
With opposition parties already claiming the prime minister — who came to power after a no-confidence vote in his predecessor — has no mandate to govern, his party’s weakness in Andalucia has led to fresh calls for immediate national elections.
In Andalucia, the centre-right People’s Party (PP) and the upstart centrist Ciudadanos party are expected to form a government with co-operation from Vox. But the arrival of the far right has unsettled Spain’s mainstream parties just as it has in European neighbours from France and Germany to Italy.
Following the death of Gen. Franco, the Spanish developed an allergy to right-wing politics. The mass immigration they’ve seen from North Africa in recent years has apparently overcome that.
But, but, but….the Dreamers.
What are the unifying themes in this issue. It seems to me its 1) demographics: making no babies, so you need upcoming people 2) cultural: failure/refusal of immigrants to assimilate and the attendant social issues, 3) social safety net arbitrage: its good to piggyback on rich countries attractions and not fix the problems at home.
That last point reminds me of Dave’s lament about IL residents fleeing vs fixing IL’s problems. I’m prepared to entertain the plight and hopelessness of, say, Gautamalans. But I differentiate national and US state borders. And, further, I simply don’t believe the US must be the solution ground for other countries malfeasance.
Shorter: what’s in it for us? Why place the interests of foreigners over US citizens?
Europe and the US are an interesting contrast to East Asia. Japan and Korea aren’t experiencing a similar dramatic swing to the right (or their right-leaning tendencies have different causes), probably because they are already highly racist cultures that forbid almost all immigration.
Korea and Japan each had about 2,000 asylum seekers in 2017 – about the same number as Luxembourg.
Spain is following the bigger trend in Europe; the collapse of a broad center right and a broad center left – for a zoo of parties across the spectrum.
The bigger news is Macron has backed down on the gas tax hike. Which on the face of it isn’t that newsworthy; every French President in the past 20-30 years backed off some policy because of street protests. But a weakened Macron and a failed Presidentcy could be very troubling in a couple of years.
When was the last time the French had a successful presidency? I suspect they will continue to limp along.
Steve
Chirac served for 12 years; Mitterand for 14. Sounds pretty successful to me.
Chirac’s re-election is a bit suspect since it was again a Le Pen – but likely he would have won against someone else.
A failed French Presidentcy now is ominous since the context is this would the 3rd consecutive failed Presidentcy. Given the center left and right have been given a shot; it’s likely the voters or populace would look for radical solutions next; and history shows that when France takes a radical turn; everyone else should watch out.