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      It’s No Surprise That Donald Trump Is Being Charged Under a Reconstruction-Era Law

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      Of the four charges included in the latest federal indictment of Donald Trump, one — violating Section 241 of Title 18 of the United States Code — seemed to surprise many. It shouldn’t have.That statute dates back to Reconstruction, as Congress responded to the Confederacy’s white-power insurrection against the United States. Reconstruction sought not only to restore the Union after the Civil War, but also to build guardrails against such an authoritarian faction ever again being able to subvert the Republic.It’s therefore appropriate that Section 241 and other Reconstruction-era laws are precisely those that the American legal system is turning to in response to a former president who stoked the flames of an insurrection in which a violent mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to undermine the democratic process. One of the rioters, later sentenced to three years in prison, carried a Confederate flag into the Capitol, an indelible image captured in photographs and widely circulated.Congress enacted Section 241 as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1870 (also known as the Enforcement Act for its role in enforcing the terms of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, crucial to providing Black people with the rights and protections of citizenship). The law addressed the rise of white supremacist groups after the Civil War, especially the Ku Klux Klan, which organized citizens and public officials to intimidate freed Black people to suppress their participation in the political process. It empowered federal agents to stop these conspirators from depriving any Americans, in particular Black Americans, of the right to have a say in their government.The Justice Department has charged Mr. Trump with doing exactly that: the government asserts in its detailed 45-page indictment that through his attempts “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election,” Mr. Trump conspired to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate” voters in exercising their “right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”Bringing civil rights charges against the former president is not overreach by the Justice Department, as some have suggested. By enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1870, the department is doing the very thing the law was designed to do by prosecuting a political leader who, while in office and after, sought to cancel the votes of millions to hold power.In 1871, with Klan violence continuing, Congress passed two more bills to enforce the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, known as the Ku Klux Klan acts. Among other things, these laws empowered citizens to sue anyone who conspired to intimidate or retaliate against them for exercising their political rights.Armed with these laws, the Justice Department oversaw the arrest and conviction of hundreds of Klansmen, and by 1873 the group had been effectively (though temporarily) crushed. While Section 241 has regularly been used ever since to police civil rights violations, with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, Klan Act litigation brought by private parties declined precipitously, according to our research, until in recent years.In July 2017, our organization, Protect Democracy, filed a Klan Act lawsuit against the 2016 Trump campaign over what we asserted was its role in Russian efforts to compromise the political rights of Americans. While that suit did not succeed, it was the beginning of a spate of private Klan Act litigation unseen in more than 100 years.Several lawsuits have been filed by our group and others. Among the results: A restraining order was issued against armed groups that surrounded ballot drop boxes in ways that intimidated voters; the Proud Boys were ordered to pay more than $1 million in damages for desecrating the property of a Black church; and a jury ordered 17 white nationalist leaders and organizations to pay more than $26 million in damages to nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017. Still pending are lawsuits seeking damages against those responsible for Jan. 6, against those who organized a car caravan that threatened to drive a campaign bus off the highway and against Mr. Trump and others for seeking to deprive Black voters from having their votes counted in the 2020 election.Other Reconstruction-era laws are also in the center of debates today. Congress recently reformed the Electoral Count Act, passed in response to the contested presidential election of 1876, after Mr. Trump and his allies sought to use the law’s ambiguities to overturn the 2020 election. The former president has also pledged, if re-elected, to abolish the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. That guarantee was ratified in 1868 to reverse the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision holding that African Americans were not citizens.Yet another 14th Amendment provision, Section 3’s prohibition on those who have engaged in insurrection against the United States from holding power again, was recently applied for the first time since Reconstruction to bar from office a New Mexico county commissioner who breached the barricades outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. And recently, our organization filed a voting rights lawsuit under the 1870 law that readmitted Virginia to the Union. The Virginia Readmission Act limited the circumstances in which the state could disenfranchise its citizens, and our lawsuit argues that the state’s lifetime ban on voting by anyone convicted of any felony violates that law.These battles are the newest iterations of the Reconstruction-era clashes. Just as the integration of freed Black people into our democracy in the 1870s was met with fierce resistance, so too did the election of the nation’s first Black president give rise to a revival of open bigotry. And just as the enactment of laws in the 1870s to enforce equal citizenship were met with intransigence, so too today should we expect to see their enforcement resisted.The outcome of these legal clashes will determine the future of the country’s experiment in self-government. Either these laws will finally be fully realized and usher in a true multiracial democracy or the 150-year resistance to Reconstruction will prevail and white Americans reluctant to share power will reinforce their dominance over a diversifying nation. Authoritarianism rather than democracy would then be the order of the day.Ian Bassin is a co-founder and the executive director of the group Protect Democracy and a former associate White House counsel. Kristy Parker is counsel at Protect Democracy and the former deputy chief of the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Rise of Far Right Leaves Germany’s Conservatives at a Crossroads

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      The surge of the Alternative for Germany party has shaken the country’s political establishment. But for mainstream conservatives, it has also prompted an acute identity crisis.Mario Voigt, a leader of Germany’s mainstream conservative party, has watched with concern the slow but steady string of victories notched by the far-right Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD.In his home state of Thuringia, in eastern Germany, the AfD just last month won the district administrator’s seat, giving the far right bureaucratic authority over an area for the first time.Since the spring, the AfD has only gathered momentum. The party has gained at least four points in polls since May, rising to 20 percent support and overtaking the country’s governing center-left Social Democrats to become Germany’s second-strongest party. A more recent poll, released on Sunday, put the AfD at a record high of 22 percent support.The AfD is now nipping at the heels of Mr. Voight’s own Christian Democratic Union, or C.D.U., the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which remains the country’s most popular but now sits in opposition.“Now is the critical juncture,” Mr. Voigt said in an interview. “We have to understand, if we are not showing or portraying ourselves as the real opposition in Germany, people will defect to the Alternative for Germany.”The ascent of the AfD, a party widely viewed as a threat to Germany’s democratic fabric, has posed a crisis for the country’s entire political establishment, but an especially acute one for the Christian Democrats, who are struggling openly with how to deal with the challenge.Should they pivot further right themselves and risk their centrist identity? Should they continue to try to isolate the AfD? Or, as that becomes increasingly difficult, should they break longstanding norms and work with the AfD instead?Those questions have bedeviled not only the Christian Democrats in Germany but also other mainstream conservative parties around Europe as nationalist and hard-right parties have made strides. Most recently, in Spain, the conservative Popular Party began partnering with the far-right Vox party at a local level. It even seemed prepared to do so nationally, until Spanish voters rebuked Vox in elections on Sunday.As state parliament elections approach in eastern Germany, including in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony, finding answers is urgent for the country’s Christian Democrats. Eyeing potential victories in the former East Germany, the AfD has vowed to foment a “political earthquake” in the months ahead.For now, the AfD has the political winds at its back. Germany’s support for Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s invasion — and the energy and refugee crises the war has provoked — has fueled German anxiety and, along with it, support for the AfD.As the current government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, tries to reorient Germany’s economic and security policies, critics say it has not made its case convincingly enough for many Germans.But neither, perhaps, has the C.D.U. in opposition.Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, during a visit to a Siemens plant in Erlangen, Germany, this month.Pool photo by Ronald Wittek“The C.D.U., its more moderate worldview and its moderate position is not really equipped for the situation of this time, when we are having a war, when we have in the energy crisis, with high costs and now with a government which tries to ideologically influence people’s lives,” Mr. Voigt, the leader of the C.D.U. in Thuringia’s state parliament, said.“This together, in my opinion, forces the C.D.U. to answer the question: What is your DNA? What is your different perspective?”It is a remarkable round of public soul-searching from a party that as recently as 2021 had a lock on political power in Berlin for nearly two decades under Ms. Merkel. But now the party is engaged in a sometimes messy public debate over how to meet an angrier, more uncertain time.Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats, in a television interview on Sunday night appeared to open the door to working with the far-right AfD in local governments. The party had previously vowed never to cooperate at any level with the AfD, which Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified as a “suspected” extremist organization.“At the municipal level, party politics have advanced a bit too far anyway,” he said. “There has now been elected a district administrator in Thuringia. And, of course, this is a democratic election. In Saxony-Anhalt, in a small community, a mayor has been elected who belongs to the AfD. And, of course, this is a democratic election. We also have to accept that.”After members of his own party bristled at his comments, Mr. Merz walked them back. One of his deputies, Carsten Linneman, said that Mr. Merz was merely pointing out the policy’s “difficult implementation on the ground.”“If it’s about a new day care center in the local Parliament, for example, we can’t vote against it just because the #AfD is voting along,” Mr. Linneman said in a statement. “We do not make ourselves dependent on right-wing radicals.”The leader of the Christian Democratic Union in Thuringia’s state parliament, Mario Voigt, voting in Erfurt, Germany, in 2020.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockNorbert Röttgen, a C.D.U. lawmaker in Parliament, called recent polling showing the AfD’s ascent “a disaster” and “an alarm signal” for “all parties of the center.”His party, he said, needed to “ask itself self-critically why we are not benefiting in practice from such great dissatisfaction with the government.”Some political experts view the resurgence of the AfD as a rejection of Ms. Merkel’s policies — particularly her immigration and climate-friendly stances. That has created a particularly awkward situation for current members of the party.To win back voters, “it will be necessary to reject some of the policies of Merkel,” said Torsten Oppelland, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Jena in Thuringia. But, he added, doing so ran the risk of alienating others.The Christian Democrats, he said, “will go on being an important party. But for winning governing majorities, it’s a huge problem.”Many in the party have declared that they will never resort to pushing the kind of far-right, populist rhetoric that the AfD traffics in. Markus Söder, the head of the state in Bavaria, has warned that the party cannot campaign on a message of “anger and frustration.”“Repeating and chasing after populists does not bring any positive results; on the contrary, it strengthens the right-wing original and not the copy,” Mr. Söder told a local newspaper. “I will not risk Bavaria’s political decency for a fleeting percent of approval in the populist area.”Yet some in the party have begun tilting further right. Mr. Merz this month replaced a top party aide responsible for day-to-day political strategy with a more conservative member.Much of the party’s angst has been channeled into pummeling the climate-friendly Greens, a part of Chancellor Scholz’s governing coalition. Conservatives blame the Greens for stoking anti-Berlin sentiment in the more rural, economically depressed areas where the AfD enjoys strong support.And whereas Ms. Merkel famously declared “We can do it!” at the peak of Europe’s immigration crisis in 2015, Mr. Merz has adopted a more hawkish tone.An asylum seeker taking a selfie with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel after her visit to registration center in Berlin in 2015.Bernd Von Jutrczenka/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The refugee crisis is present again, combined with the uneasy feeling that there is always enough money for refugees, but less and less for kindergartens, schools and hospitals,” he wrote in a recent edition of his newsletter, explaining the rise of the AfD.Mr. Voight believes the Christian Democrats can still find electoral success with the party’s “pragmatism” and “moderate worldview.” But its message, he said, must be “understood at people’s tables.”“You have to tear down this wall in a way,” Mr. Voigt said, to bring AfD-friendly voters “over to the good side of politics, the democratic side. They have frustration, they have anger, you have to address it. And you have to talk to them in a language that they understand.”Jan Redmann, the party leader in Brandenburg, said in an interview that he believed that C.D.U. members had inadvertently allowed the AfD to define their positions on crucial issues like immigration, because they “tried not to be mixed up with” the far-right party.“People want a government that secures the borders — people are against illegal trafficking, against illegal migration,” Mr. Redmann said. “And if no party in the democratic field is giving them this position, it makes the AfD stronger.”An Alternative for Germany campaign poster in Saxony-Anhalt this month.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockEkaterina Bodyagina More

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      ¿Qué significa para España la derrota electoral de la extrema derecha?

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      Una de las pocas certezas de los resultados de las elecciones fue que los españoles se están alejando de los extremos políticos.El statu quo liberal y moderado de Europa respiró con más tranquilidad el lunes luego de que Vox, un partido nacionalista de España, se tambaleara en las elecciones generales del domingo con lo que, por el momento, se contuvo el auge de los partidos de extrema derecha en el continente, que parecía que tendrían buenos resultados incluso en España, un bastión progresista.“Un alivio para Europa”, se leía en un titular de La Repubblica, el diario liberal de Italia, donde el año pasado la líder de extrema derecha Giorgia Meloni se convirtió en primera ministra. Meloni, en un mensaje en video divulgado este mes, les dijo a sus aliados de Vox que “la hora de los patriotas ha llegado”.Sin embargo, en vez de que Vox se tornara en el primer partido de extrema derecha en formar parte de un gobierno de España desde el final de la dictadura de Francisco Franco hace casi 50 años, como habían estimado muchas encuestas, se hundió. Los malos resultados del partido en las urnas también afectaron a los conservadores de centroderecha, quienes a su vez obtuvieron resultados más limitados de los que se esperaban y que dependían del apoyo de Vox para formar gobierno.Como resultado, ningún partido o coalición obtuvo de manera inmediata los escaños necesarios del Congreso para gobernar, lo que llevó a España a un embrollo político ya conocido y le dio nueva vida al presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, que hace solo unos días lucía agonizante. De pronto, Sánchez parece mejor posicionado para formar otro gobierno progresista en las próximas semanas y así evitar nuevas elecciones.“La democracia encontrará la fórmula de la gobernabilidad”, dijo el lunes a los líderes de su partido, el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), según el diario El País.Lo que quedó claro es que los votantes españoles rechazaron al partido Vox, que perdió casi la mitad de sus escaños en el Congreso, lo que indica un anhelo evidente de alejarse de los extremos y regresar al centro político.Los políticos proeuropeos interpretaron el resultado como una señal alentadora de que las elecciones europeas del próximo año también se pueden ganar desde el centro, lo que significa un revés para las fuerzas de extrema derecha que han logrado avances en Suecia, Finlandia, Alemania, Francia e Italia, así como en Estados Unidos.La campaña de Vox repitió las opiniones nacionalistas de la extrema derecha adoptados de manera casi uniforme en otros países, con una oposición a la migración y a los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ, la promoción de los valores cristianos tradicionales y la reafirmación del nacionalismo frente a la injerencia de la Unión Europea.Pero muchos de esos temas no lograron cautivar a los votantes españoles, o incluso los asustaron, y los resultados electorales fueron contrarios a la tendencia política de Europa.Los resultados, por el contrario, revelaron que el ascenso de Vox estuvo más relacionado con la respuesta nacionalista al impulso independentista de 2017 en Cataluña. Sánchez logró sosegar ese tema durante sus cinco años en el cargo al otorgar indultos y reducir las penas para los independentistas.Pedro Sánchez, líder del PSOE y presidente del gobierno español, en Madrid el domingoNacho Doce/ReutersEsas medidas tuvieron un costo político para él entre los españoles enfadados con los independentistas catalanes, pero conforme esa crisis comenzó a pasar a segundo plano, lo mismo le sucedió a Vox. Al final, el mensaje del partido les interesó a muchos menos electores en estos comicios que en 2019.“Cataluña ha sido uno de los principales impulsores del ascenso de Vox”, dijo Juan Rodríguez Teruel, politólogo de la Universidad de Valencia.Pero los resultados del domingo también mostraron que la cuestión catalana aún no está superada del todo. El lunes quedó claro que los partidos independentistas pequeños de esa región podrían ser la clave para permitir un nuevo gobierno de Sánchez, como lo hicieron en la votación anterior.Entre esos partidos están, de manera decisiva, los aliados independentistas de Carles Puigdemont, el expresidente regional de Cataluña que lideró el movimiento independentista fallido y todavía está prófugo, en un exilio autoimpuesto en Bélgica.“Puigdemont podrá hacer presidente a Sánchez”, se lee en parte de un titular del diario español El Mundo.El lunes comenzó de inmediato un complejo juego del gato y el ratón, porque unas autoridades españolas solicitaron una nueva orden de detención contra Puigdemont.“Un día eres decisivo para la formación de un gobierno español y al día siguiente España ordena tu arresto”, tuiteó el lunes.Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso de los Diputados por Esquerra Republicana, un partido independentista catalán, dijo en una entrevista antes de las elecciones que Sánchez no tendría más remedio que dialogar con los independentistas.“Hace cuatro años, en la campaña electoral, prometió ir a buscar a Puigdemont a Waterloo y detenerle”, dijo Rufián sobre Sánchez. “No podía. Era absurdo”. Y añadió: “Meses después se sentó en la mesa de negociación con nosotros. Fue por la presión política, porque necesitaba gobernar su país”.El domingo por la noche, tras la votación, resumió su mensaje en una frase: “O Cataluña o Vox”. Pero su partido también perdió apoyo con el viraje de los electores españoles hacia el centro.Está por verse qué significará el resurgimiento del debate sobre Cataluña para España, los independentistas y Vox.Vox se fundó hace una década, cuando su líder, Santiago Abascal, se separó del Partido Popular (PP), un partido de centroderecha que por mucho tiempo ha albergado a partidarios de la monarquía, libertarios a favor del matrimonio igualitario, católicos ultraconservadores y españoles que repudian los movimientos independentistas del norte.El partido creía en una España unificada pero, en las décadas que siguieron al régimen de Franco, las expresiones a favor de esa postura —incluso ondear la bandera española—, se consideraban un tabú del nacionalismo.Sin embargo, animado por el impulso independentista en Cataluña, Vox estaba dispuesto a cruzar esa línea. Un buen número de votantes españoles apoyaron al partido.Los nacionalistas de Vox —que hicieron un llamado a que el movimiento independentista catalán fuera detenido por cualquier medio— atrajeron apoyo. Para las elecciones de 2019, se habían convertido en la tercera fuerza más grande del país.En un breve discurso el domingo por la noche tras los malos resultados de su partido, un Abascal que lucía abatido reconoció que Sánchez ahora tenía el apoyo para bloquear la formación de un nuevo gobierno, y también podría formar gobierno si se aliaba de nuevo con la extrema izquierda y los partidos independistas, o lo que describió como “el apoyo del comunismo, el separatismo de golpista y el terrorismo”.“Vamos a resistir”, insistió, y afirmó que su partido estaba preparado para ser parte de la oposición o “para una repetición electoral”.Pero los analistas creen que es probable que unas nuevas elecciones solo debiliten aún más a Vox. La influencia regresó a Cataluña, y más específicamente al partido de línea dura Junts per Catalunya, fundado por Puigdemont.“No haremos presidente a Sánchez a cambio de nada”, dijo en la sede del partido el domingo por la noche Míriam Nogueras, líder de Junts.Otros miembros de su partido, que fueron indultados por Sánchez, han sugerido que una amnistía y un referéndum de independencia puede ser el precio que exigen.Sin embargo, algunos políticos de izquierda y dirigentes locales que desconfían de Vox han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que el aumento de la tensión con Cataluña sea exactamente lo que necesita la extrema derecha para resurgir.El viernes por la noche, Yolanda Díaz, líder de la plataforma de extrema izquierda Sumar que obtuvo 31 escaños, dijo en un mitin en Barcelona que quería “dialogar con Cataluña. Queremos un acuerdo. Salid a votar por el dialogo, por un acuerdo, por una Cataluña mejor”.Yolanda Díaz, líder de la plataforma de extrema izquierda Sumar, en un mitin en Barcelona el viernesMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEl lunes, su partido contactó a Puigdemont y a Junts para intentar persuadirlos de respaldar al gobierno.En Barcelona, antes de las elecciones del domingo, a lo largo de una calle importante que se cubrió con banderas catalanas durante las protestas de 2017, solo había una a la vista.“La situación de España y la irrupción de la extrema derecha es una consecuencia de lo que ha pasado aquí en Cataluña”, dijo Joaquim Hernández, de 64 años.“Al no hacer el referéndum mantienes la tensión y el enfrentamiento que beneficia a los partidos independentistas y a Vox”, dijo, “porque Cataluña es desafortunadamente un argumento que utilizan los nacionalistas para ganar votos”.Rachel Chaundler More

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      What the Collapse of Spain’s Far Right Means Going Forward

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      About the only thing clear from Spain’s muddled election results was that Spaniards were turning away from the political extremes.Europe’s liberal and moderate establishment breathed easier on Monday after Spain’s nationalist Vox party faltered in Sunday’s elections, stalling for now a surge from far-right parties around the continent that seemed on the brink of washing over even the progressive bastion of Spain.“A relief for Europe,” read a front-page headline in the liberal La Repubblica in Italy, where the hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni became prime minister last year and predicted “the hour of the patriots has arrived” in a video message to her Vox allies this month.But instead of Vox becoming the first hard-right party to enter government in Spain since the end of the Franco dictatorship nearly 50 years ago, as many polls had predicted, it sank. The party’s poor returns at the polls also took down the underperforming center-right conservatives who had depended on Vox’s support to form a government.As a result, no single party or coalition immediately gained enough parliamentary seats to govern, thrusting Spain into a familiar political muddle and giving new life to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who only days ago seemed moribund. Suddenly, Mr. Sánchez appeared best positioned to cobble together another progressive government in the coming weeks to avoid new elections.“This democracy will find the governability formula,” he told the leaders of his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party on Monday, according to El País.What is clear for now is that Spanish voters rebuked the Vox party, which lost nearly half its seats in Parliament, signaling a clear desire to turn away from the extremes and back toward the political center.Pro-European politicians took the result as an encouraging sign that next year’s European elections would also be won in the center, dealing a setback to the far-right forces that have made gains in Sweden, Finland, Germany, France and Italy, as well as in the United States.Vox’s campaign parroted nearly uniform hard-right, nationalist views espoused in other nations, with opposition to migration and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, promotion of traditional Christian values and the assertion of nationalism over meddling from the European Union.But many of those issues failed to draw Spanish voters, or even scared them, and the country’s election results went contrary to Europe’s political winds.Instead, the results made clear that the rise of Vox had more to do with the nationalist response to a 2017 explosion of secessionist fervor in Spain’s Catalonia region. Mr. Sánchez managed to defuse that issue during his five years in office by delivering pardons and weakening penalties for the secessionists.Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist leader and prime minister, in Madrid, on Sunday.Nacho Doce/ReutersFor that he paid a political price among Spaniards angered by the Catalans, but as long as the issue seemed on the back burner, so did Vox. Ultimately, the party’s message had far fewer takers in this election than it did in 2019.“Catalonia has been one of the main drivers of the rise of Vox,” said Juan Rodríguez Teruel, a political scientist at the University of Valencia.But Sunday’s results also showed that the Catalan issue was not quite dead yet. On Monday, it became clear that the small independence parties of that region may very well hold the key to unlocking a new government for Mr. Sánchez, just as they did in the last vote.Critically, those parties include the pro-independence allies of Carles Puigdemont, the former regional president of Catalonia who led the failed secessionist movement and is still on the run, living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.“Puigdemont could make Sánchez president,” read a headline in the daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo.A complicated cat-and-mouse game was immediately underway on Monday, with Spanish prosecutors issuing a new arrest warrant for Mr. Puigdemont.“One day you are decisive in order to form a Spanish government, the next day Spain orders your arrest,” he tweeted on Monday.Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with the Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-Catalan independence party, said in a pre-election interview that Mr. Sánchez had no choice but to deal with the secessionists.“Four years ago in the electoral campaign, Sánchez promised to search for Puigdemont in Waterloo and arrest him. He could not. It was absurd,” he said. “Months later he sat down at the negotiating table with us. It was because of political pressure, because he needed to govern his country.”On Sunday night, after the vote, he boiled his message down simply to “Either Catalonia or Vox.” But his party lost support, too, in Spaniards’ turn to the center.What a revival the Catalonia issue would mean now for Spain, the secessionists and Vox remains to be seen.Vox was established a decade ago when its leader, Santiago Abascal, split from the Popular Party, long a big center-right tent that included monarchists, libertarian supporters of same-sex marriage, ultraconservative Catholics and Spaniards who detested the independence movements of the north.The party believed in a unified Spain; however, overt expressions of that view — even waving the national flag — in the decades after the Franco regime were considered taboo signs of nationalism.But spurred by Catalonia’s push for independence, Vox was more than willing to cross that line. A surge of Spaniards followed it.The nationalists in Vox — who called for the Catalan movement to be put down by any means necessary — soaked up support. By the 2019 elections, they had grown to the third largest party in the country.In a short speech Sunday night after his party’s drubbing, a downcast Mr. Abascal acknowledged that Mr. Sánchez now had the support to block a new government, and could also be sworn in again with the support of the far-left and the separatist parties, or what he called “the support of communism, coup separatism and terrorism.”“We’re going to resist,” he insisted, saying that his party was prepared to be in the opposition or “repeat elections.”But analysts said new elections would likely only weaken Vox further. The leverage had shifted back to Catalonia, and more specifically to the more hard-line Together for Catalonia party, founded by Mr. Puigdemont.“We will not make Sánchez president in exchange for nothing,” Míriam Nogueras, a leader of the Together for Catalonia party, said at her headquarters Sunday night.Others in her party, who were pardoned by Mr. Sánchez, have suggested that further amnesties and a referendum on independence may be the price they demand.But left-wing politicians and locals wary of Vox worried that increased tension with Catalonia was exactly what the far right needed for a resurgence.“We want dialogue with Catalonia. We want an agreement. Go out and vote for dialogue, for an agreement, for a better Catalonia,” Yolanda Díaz, the leader of the hard-left Sumar party, which won 31 seats, told a rally in Barcelona on Friday night.Yolanda Díaz at a Sumar rally in Barcelona on Friday.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesOn Monday, her party reached out to Mr. Puigdemont and the Together for Catalonia party to convince them to back the government.On the eve of Sunday’s election in Barcelona, along a main thoroughfare that was blanketed in Catalan flags during the 2017 protests, there was only one visible“The situation in Spain and the eruption of the extreme right is a consequence of what happened here in Catalonia,” said Joaquim Hernandez, 64.“By not having the referendum, you keep the tension and the confrontation that benefits the independence parties and Vox,” he said, “because Catalonia is unfortunately an argument that the nationalists use to win votes.”Rachel Chaundler More

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      Elecciones en España: el resultado empuja al país a la incertidumbre

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      La votación mostró que ningún partido obtuvo el apoyo necesario para gobernar, dejando al país frente a semanas de incertidumbre.España se vio sumida en la incertidumbre política el domingo después de que las elecciones nacionales no otorgaron a ningún partido el apoyo suficiente para formar un gobierno, lo que probablemente resulte en semanas de regateo o posiblemente en una nueva votación a finales de este año.Los resultados mostraron que la mayoría de los votos se dividieron entre la centroderecha y la centroizquierda. Pero ni el Partido Socialista del presidente Pedro Sánchez ni sus oponentes conservadores obtuvieron suficientes votos para gobernar solos en el Congreso de 350 escaños.Si bien los conservadores lideraron, los aliados con los que podrían haberse asociado para formar un gobierno del partido de extrema derecha Vox vieron cómo su apoyo se desmoronaba, ya que los españoles rechazaron a los partidos extremistas.El resultado fue una votación poco concluyente y un embrollo político que se ha vuelto familiar para los españoles desde que su sistema bipartidista se fracturó hace casi una década. Esto parece dejar a España en un limbo político en un momento importante cuando ostenta la presidencia rotatoria del Consejo Europeo mientras enfrenta una agresión rusa en Ucrania.Con el 99 por ciento de los resultados, el conservador Partido Popular obtenía 136 escaños en el Congreso, frente a 122 de los Socialistas. Pero habían anticipado obtener una mayoría absoluta y gobernar sin Vox, partido que que muchos de los propios responsables del partido consideran anacrónico, peligroso y execrable para los valores moderados de España.El líder del partido, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, dijo poco después de la medianoche que se sentía muy orgulloso frente a una multitud que ondeaba banderas españolas y alegó que dado que su partido había ganado la elección, tenía derecho a formar gobierno.Pero el tono de su discurso era claramente defensivo y dijo que los candidatos que habían obtenido la mayor cantidad de votos siempre había gobernado y que sería una “anomalía” si no fuera así en esta ocasión, manchando la reputación de España en el exterior. Dijo que su meta era evitar al país un periodo de “incertidumbre”.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del Partido Popular, tras la votación del domingo en Madrid.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressAfuera, mientras sonaba la letra de “Tonight’s going to be a good night” (“Esta noche será una buena noche”), la atmósfera era de celebración, si bien los seguidores comprendían que no era una buena noche para el partido.Isabel Ruiz, de 24 años, comentó que había pensado que ganarían a lo grande. Llevaba una bandera española en los hombros y dijo que estaba preparada para seguir votando hasta desbancar a Sánchez.El caos político no es nuevo en España. En 2016, el país pasó 10 meses en un limbo mientras avanzaba de elección en elección. Luego, Sánchez derrocó al presidente conservador y ganó el poder con una maniobra parlamentaria en 2018. Siguieron más elecciones hasta que Sánchez finalmente armó un gobierno minoritario con la extrema izquierda y el apoyo en el Congreso de pequeños partidos independentistas.Esta vez, Sánchez, un sobreviviente político de primer orden, volvió a desafiar las expectativas, aumentando los escaños de su partido en el Congreso y ganando suficiente apoyo con sus aliados de izquierda para bloquear la formación de un gobierno conservador por ahora.El domingo, a las afueras de la sede de su partido, dijo que el pueblo español había sido claro y aseguró que la mayoría de los españoles deseaba seguir en un camino progresista.El presidente podría gobernar otro periodo si lo respaldan todos los partidos opuestos al PP y a Vox, una tarea extremadamente difícil.En las semanas previas a las elecciones, Sánchez y sus aliados de izquierda expresaron temores sobre la disposición de sus oponentes conservadores a asociarse con Vox, lo que podría convertirlo en el primer partido de extrema derecha en aliarse con el gobierno desde la dictadura del general Francisco Franco hace casi 50 años.La perspectiva de que Vox comparta el poder en el gobierno inquietaba a muchos españoles y provocó una cadena de reacciones en la Unión Europea y sus bastiones liberales restantes, sorprendiendo a muchos que habían considerado a España inoculada contra los extremos políticos desde que terminó el régimen de Franco en la década de 1970.La ascensión de Vox, argumentaban los liberales, equivaldría a un punto de inflexión preocupante para España y otra señal más del avance de la derecha en Europa. En cambio, Vox se hundió y puede haber reducido las posibilidades de que el Partido Popular gobierne con él.Un mitin de Vox en Madrid la semana pasadaManu Fernandez/Associated PressSánchez, que ha gobernado España durante cinco años, permanecerá como líder de un gobierno interino mientras se determina la composición de un nuevo gobierno o la fecha de las nuevas elecciones.Los analistas han indicado que los votantes españoles se cansaron de los extremos de derecha e izquierda y buscaron volver al centro. Una nueva elección, dijeron, continuaría esa tendencia y muy probablemente marginaría aún más la influencia de Vox. El Partido Popular espera recuperar sus votos y crecer lo suficiente como para gobernar por sí solo.Sánchez, uno de los líderes progresistas favoritos de la Unión Europea, presidió un repunte económico, pero alienó a muchos votantes al dar marcha atrás en sus promesas y forjar alianzas con partidos políticos asociados con los independentistas catalanes, así como con exterroristas vascos que alguna vez también buscaron separarse de España.Arnold Merino, de 43 años, quien votó por el conservador Partido Popular, dijo que había tenido dificultad para tomar una decisión de último momento. “La gente no confiaba en él”.El presidente del Gobierno Pedro Sánchez, en campaña en Getafe, España, la semana pasadaVioleta Santos Moura/ReutersSánchez convocó a elecciones anticipadas —se habían programado para fines de año— luego de unos duros resultados en las elecciones locales y regionales de mayo.En los últimos días de la contienda, los socialistas y la plataforma de extrema izquierda, Sumar, proyectaron optimismo ante la posibilidad de cambiar las cosas, ya que las encuestas los mostraban a la zaga. Las vallas publicitarias de toda España mostraban a Sánchez con un aspecto juvenil y afable bajo un letrero que decía “Adelante” junto a fotografías en blanco y negro de los líderes conservadores que decían “Atrás”.El Partido Popular se oponía menos a las propuestas políticas que a Sánchez. Tanto los conservadores como sus aliados de extrema derecha realizaron una campaña muy crítica de Sánchez, o de un estilo de gobierno que llamaron “sanchismo”, diciendo que no se podía confiar en él porque incumplió su palabra a los votantes, hizo alianzas con la extrema izquierda y llegó a acuerdos electoralmente ventajosos que antepusieron su propia supervivencia política al interés nacional.Aun así, España parecía ser en los últimos años un punto brillante para los liberales. Sánchez mantuvo baja la inflación, redujo las tensiones con los independentistas en Cataluña y aumentó la tasa de crecimiento económico, las pensiones y el salario mínimo.Pero la alianza entre Sánchez e independentistas profundamente polarizadores y fuerzas de extrema izquierda alimentó el resentimiento entre muchos votantes. Toda la campaña, que incluyó a Sánchez y su aliado de extrema izquierda advirtiendo contra el extremismo de Vox, se volvió contra las malas compañías de los aliados de los principales partidos.Yolanda Díaz, líder del partido de izquierda Sumar, en Madrid el domingoVincent West/ReutersY, sin embargo, a pesar de todo lo que se habló sobre el extremismo, los resultados mostraron que los votantes españoles, muchos de los cuales fueron perseguidos por la dictadura y las décadas de terrorismo generadas por disputas territoriales relacionadas, se volcaron hacia el centro.El partido Vox, ampliamente visto como un claro descendiente de la dictadura de Franco, perdió 19 escaños. Su discurso se concentró en la oposición al aborto, a los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ, la intromisión de la Unión Europea en los asuntos españoles y es férreamente antiinmigrante.Merino dijo que pensaba que la gente deseaba volver al bipartidismo “porque brinda estabilidad”. Y añadió que con el Partido Popular la gente sabe lo que habrá.El líder de Vox, Santiago Abascal, se separó del Partido Popular en medio de un escándalo de fondos para sobornos en 2013. Vox comenzó con trucos como cubrir Gibraltar, el extremo sur del país controlado por Gran Bretaña desde 1713, con una bandera española.También publicó videos con realidades alternas en las que los musulmanes imponían la sharía en el sur de España y convertían la catedral de Córdoba en una mezquita. En otro video, musicalizado con la banda sonora de El señor de los anillos, una piedra angular de la cultura para la nueva extrema derecha de Europa, Abascal dirige un grupo de hombres a caballo para reconquistar Europa.Para Aurora Rodil, concejala por Vox en la localidad sureña de Elche que ya gobernó con el alcalde del Partido Popular, todo esto era muy alegórico y bonito. “Hay tanto por reconquistar en España”, dijo.Pero la votación del domingo sugirió que habían sido derrotados.Ramón Campoy, de 35 años, dijo que España estaba de veras equilibrada, mientras se tomaba un descanso del trabajo el viernes en Barcelona, ​​parado bajo la bandera LGBTQ en una plaza adornada con una estatua ecuestre de Ramón Berenguer III, el gobernante coronado de Cataluña en el siglo XI.Campoy agregó que el país, a su parecer, estaba de veras en el centro.Jason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otras partes del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en reportajes especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More

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      Spain Elections: Results Show No Party With Enough Votes to Govern

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      The returns showed no party winning the support needed to govern, leaving the country facing weeks of uncertainty.Spain was thrust into political uncertainty on Sunday after national elections left no party with enough support to form a government, most likely resulting in weeks of horse trading or potentially a new vote later this year.Returns showed most votes were divided between the center right and center left. But neither the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez nor his conservative opponents won enough ballots to govern alone in the 350-seat Parliament.While the conservatives came out ahead, the allies they might have partnered with to form a government in the hard-right Vox party saw their support crater, as Spaniards rejected extremist parties.The outcome was an inconclusive election and a political muddle that has become familiar to Spaniards since their two-party system fractured nearly a decade ago. It seemed likely to leave Spain in political limbo at an important moment when it holds the rotating presidency of the European Council as it faces down Russian aggression in Ukraine.With 99 percent of the returns in, the conservative Popular Party won 136 seats in Parliament, compared with 122 for the Socialists. But they had hoped to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, which many of the party’s own officials consider anachronistic, anathema to Spain’s moderate values and dangerous.“I feel very proud,” the party’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said shortly after midnight, arguing before a crowd waving Spanish flags that since his party won the election, he had the right to form a government.But his speech had a clearly defensive tone, and he said that the candidates who have won the most votes have always governed, arguing that it would be an “anomaly” if it didn’t happen this time, and would tarnish Spain’s reputation abroad. He said his goal was to spare Spain a period of “uncertainty.”Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, after voting in Madrid on Sunday.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressOutside, the lyrics “Tonight’s going to be a good night” echoed amid a celebratory atmosphere, but supporters understood that it was not really a good night for their party.“I thought they were going to win big,” said Isabel Ruiz, 24, who wore a Spanish flag over her shoulders. She said she was prepared to keep voting to get rid of Mr. Sánchez.A political mess is not new to Spain. In 2016, the country spent 10 months in political limbo as it careened from election to election. Then Mr. Sánchez ousted the conservative prime minister and gained power in a parliamentary maneuver in 2018. More elections followed until Mr. Sánchez ultimately cobbled together a minority government with the far left and support in Parliament from small independence parties.This time, Mr. Sánchez, a political survivalist of the first order, once again defied expectations, increasing his party’s seats in Parliament and gaining enough support with his left-wing allies for now to block the formation of a conservative government.“The Spanish people have been clear,” he said Sunday evening outside his party’s headquarters, arguing that a larger number of Spaniards wanted to stay on the progressive track.The prime minister could potentially win another term if all the available parties opposed to the Popular Party and Vox backed him — an extremely difficult task.“The reactionary bloc has failed,” Mr. Sánchez said.In the weeks leading up to the election, Mr. Sánchez and his left-wing allies raised fears about his conservative opponents’ willingness to ally with Vox, potentially making it the first hard-right party to join the government since the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco nearly 50 years ago.The prospect of Vox sharing power in government unnerved many Spaniards and sent ripples through the European Union and its remaining liberal strongholds, surprising many who had considered Spain inoculated against political extremes since the Franco regime ended in the 1970s.Vox’s ascension, liberals argued, would amount to a troubling watershed for Spain and yet another sign of the rise of the right in Europe. Instead, Vox sank, and may have brought down the chances for the Popular Party to govern with it.A Vox rally in Madrid last week.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressMr. Sánchez, who has governed Spain for five years, will remain as leader of a caretaker government as the composition of a new government, or timing of new elections, is worked out.Analysts have noted that Spain’s voters had grown tired of the extremes of the right and left and had sought to return to the center. A new election, they said, would continue that trend, and most likely further marginalize Vox’s influence. The Popular Party hopes that it would take back their votes and grow large enough to govern on its own.A progressive darling of the European Union, Mr. Sánchez presided over an economic rebound, but he alienated many voters by backtracking on promises and building alliances with political parties associated with the Catalan secessionists as well as former Basque terrorists who also once sought to split from Spain.“I had a hard time deciding up to the last minute,” said Arnold Merino, 43, who voted for the Popular Party. “People didn’t trust him.”Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, campaigning in Getafe, Spain, last week.Violeta Santos Moura/ReutersMr. Sánchez called the elections early — they had been scheduled at the end of the year — after a bruising in local and regional elections in May.In the closing days of the race, the Socialists and the far-left umbrella group, Sumar, projected optimism about the possibility of turning things around as polls showed them trailing. Billboards around Spain showed Mr. Sánchez looking youthful and suave under a sign for “Forward” next to black-and-white pictures of the conservative leaders reading, “Backward.”The Popular Party ran less on policy proposals than against Mr. Sánchez. Both the conservatives and their hard-right allies ran a campaign sharply critical of Mr. Sánchez, or a style of governing they called “Sanchismo,” saying he could not be trusted as he broke his word to voters, made alliances with the far left and cut electorally advantageous deals that put his own political survival ahead of the national interest.Even so, Spain seemed in recent years to be a bright spot for liberals. Mr. Sánchez kept inflation low, reduced tensions with separatists in Catalonia and increased the economic growth rate, pensions and the minimum wage.But the alliance between Mr. Sánchez and deeply polarizing separatists and far-left forces fueled resentment among many voters. The entire campaign, which included Mr. Sánchez and his far-left ally warning against the extremism of Vox, turned on the bad company of the main parties’ allies.Yolanda Diaz, leader of the left-wing Sumar party, in Madrid on Sunday.Vincent West/ReutersAnd yet, for all the talk about extremism, results showed that Spanish voters, many of whom were haunted by the dictatorship and the decades of terrorism spawned by related territorial disputes, turned to the center.The Vox party, widely seen as a clear descendant of Franco’s dictatorship, lost 19 seats. It ran on opposition to abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights and European Union meddling in Spanish affairs, and is staunchly anti-immigrant.“I think people want to go back to bipartisanship, because it provides stability,” said Mr. Merino. “With the Popular Party, you know what you are getting.”The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, split from the Popular Party amid a slush-fund scandal in 2013. Vox started with stunts like draping Gibraltar, the southern tip of the country controlled by Britain since 1713, with a Spanish flag.It filmed alternate realities in which Muslims imposed Shariah law in southern Spain and turned the Cathedral of Cordoba back into a mosque. In another video, scored to the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings, a cultural touchstone for Europe’s new hard right, Mr. Abascal leads a posse of men on horseback to reconquer Europe.“It’s very allegoric, but it’s also beautiful,” said Aurora Rodil, a Vox deputy mayor of the southern town of Elche who already governed with the Popular Party mayor. “There’s so much to be reconquered in Spain.”Sunday’s vote, however, suggested that they had been beaten back.“Spain is really balanced,” said Ramon Campoy, 35, as he took a break from work on Friday in Barcelona, standing under the L.G.B.T.Q. flag in a square graced by an equestrian statue of Ramon Berenguer III, the crowned 11th-century ruler of Catalonia.Mr. Campoy added, “I think the country is really in the center.” More

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      Far Right May Rise as Kingmaker in Spanish Election

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      A messier political landscape has lent leverage to the extremes, leaving a hard-right party poised to share power for the first time since Franco.If Spain’s national elections on Sunday turn out as most polls and analysts suggest, mainstream conservatives may come out on top but need allies on the political fringe to govern, ushering the first hard-right party into power since the Franco dictatorship.The potential ascent of that hard-right party, Vox, which has a deeply nationalist spirit imbued with Franco’s ghost, would bring Spain into the growing ranks of European nations where mainstream conservative parties have partnered with previously taboo forces out of electoral necessity. It is an important marker for a politically shifting continent, and a pregnant moment for a country that has long grappled with the legacy of its dictatorship.Even before Spaniards cast a single ballot, it has raised questions of where the country’s political heart actually lies — whether its painful past and transition to democracy only four decades ago have rendered Spain a mostly moderate, inclusive and centrist country, or whether it could veer toward extremes once again.Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right party Vox, greeting supporters this month at a rally in Barcelona. Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesSpain’s establishment, centrist parties — both the conservative Popular Party and the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — have long dominated the country’s politics, and the bulk of the electorate seems to be turning away from the extremes toward the center, experts note.But neither of Spain’s mainstream parties have enough support to govern alone. The Popular Party, though predicted to come out on top on Sunday, is not expected to win a majority in the 350-seat Parliament, making an alliance imperative. The hard-right Vox is its most likely partner.The paradox is that even as Vox appears poised to reach the height of its power since it was founded a decade ago, its support may be shrinking, as its stances against abortion rights, climate change policies and L.G.B.T.Q. rights have frightened many voters away.The notion that the country is becoming more extremist is “a mirage,” said Sergio del Molino, a Spanish author and commentator who has written extensively about Spain and its transformations.The election, he said, reflected more the political fragmentation of the establishment parties, prompted by the radicalizing events of the 2008 financial crisis and the near secession of Catalonia in 2017. That has now made alliances, even sometimes with parties on the political fringe, a necessity.He pointed to “a gap” between the country’s political leadership, which needed to seek electoral support in the extremes to govern, and a “Spanish society that wants to return to the center again.”In Barcelona this past week. Spain’s establishment, centrist parties, have long dominated the country’s politics.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesJosé Ignacio Torreblanca, a Spain expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the messy process of coalition building in the relatively new Spanish era of the post two-party system lent leverage and visibility to fringe parties greater than their actual support.“This is not a blue and red country, at all,” he said.Other were less convinced. Paula Suárez, 29, a doctor and left-wing candidate for local office in Barcelona with the Sumar coalition, said the polarization in the country was entrenched. “It’s got to do with the civil war — it’s heritage. Half of Spain is left wing and half is right wing,” she said, calling Vox Franco’s descendants.But those who see a mostly centrist Spain use the same historical reference point for their argument. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Later, through the shared traumas of decades of murders by Basque terrorists seeking to break from Spain, the two major establishment parties, the Popular Party and the Socialists, forged a political center and provided a roomy home for most voters.But recent events have tested the strength of Spain’s immunity to appeals from the political extremes. Even if abidingly centrist, Spanish politics today, if not polarized, is no doubt tugged at the fringes.A salon in Barcelona. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesA corruption scandal in the Popular Party prompted Vox to splinter off in 2013. Then the near secession of Catalonia in 2017 provided jet fuel to nationalists at a time when populist anger against globalization, the European Union and gender-based identity politics were taking off across Europe.On the other side of the spectrum, the financial crisis prompted the creation of a hard left in 2015, forcing Mr. Sánchez later to form a government with that group and cross a red line for himself and the country.Perhaps of greater consequence for this election, he has also relied on the votes of Basque groups filled with former terrorists, giving conservative voters a green light to become more permissive of Vox, Mr. Torreblanca said. “This is what turned politics in Spain quite toxic,” he said.After local elections in May, which dealt a blow to Mr. Sánchez and prompted him to call the early elections that Spaniards will vote in on Sunday, the conservatives and Vox have already formed alliances throughout the country.In some cases, the worst fears of liberals are being borne out. Outside Madrid, Vox culture officials banned performances with gay or feminist themes. In other towns, they have eliminated bike paths and taken down Pride flags.A Pride flag hanging on a house in Náquera, Spain. The newly elected mayor from the Vox party in the town of Náquera has ordered the removal of Pride flags from municipal buildings.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesEster Calderón, a representative of a national feminist organization in Valencia, where feminists marched on Thursday, said she feared that the country’s Equality Ministry, which is loathed by Vox, would be scrapped if the party shared power in a new government.She attributed the rise in Vox to the progress feminists had made in recent years, saying it had provoked a reactionary backlash. “It’s as if they have come out of the closet,” she said.At a rally for Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, an all-woman lineup talked about maternity leave, defending abortion rights and protecting women from abuse. The crowd, many cooling themselves with fans featuring Ms. Díaz in dark sunglasses, erupted at the various calls to action to stop Vox.“Only if we’re strong,” Ms. Díaz said. “Will we send Vox to the opposition.”Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, at a rally this past week. “Only if we’re strong,” she said, “will we send Vox to the opposition.”Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesBut members of the conservative Popular Party, which is hoping to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, have tried to assure moderate voters spooked by the prospect of an alliance with the hard right that they will not allow Vox to pull them backward.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, outside Barcelona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights, climate policies or Spain’s close relationship with Europe if his party had to bring in Vox, which he called 30 years behind the times.Vox, he said, was only interested in “spectacle” to feed their base, and would merely “change the name” of things, like gender-based violence to domestic violence, without altering substance.Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights or climate policies if his party had to bring in Vox.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times“The paradox now,” said Mr. Torreblanca, the political analyst, is that just as Mr. Sánchez entered government with the far left when it was losing steam, the Popular Party seemed poised to govern with Vox as its support was sinking. “The story would be that Spain is turning right. When in fact this is the moment when Vox is at the weakest point.”Recent polls have shown voters turning away from Vox, and even some of its supporters did not think the party should touch the civil rights protections that Spain’s liberals introduced, and that its conservatives supported.Gay marriage “should remain legal of course,” said Alex Ruf, 23, a Vox supporter who sat with his girlfriend on a bench in Barcelona’s wealthy Sarriá district.Mr. Albiol, the mayor of Badalona, insisted that Spain was inoculated, and said that unlike other European countries, it would continue to be.“Due to the historical tradition of a dictatorship for 40 years,” he said, Spain “has become a society where the majority of the population is not situated at the extremes.”That was of little consolation to Juana Guerrero, 65, who attended the left-wing Sumar event.If Vox gets into power, they will “trample us under their shoes,” she said, grinding an imaginary cigarette butt under her foot.In Barcelona this past week. Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesRachel Chaundler More

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      Elecciones generales de España: las alianzas al centro del debate

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      Los grandes temas del país han estado en buena medida ausentes del debate político. Las posibles coaliciones y los aliados de los principales partidos han sido el foco de la campaña.La guerra en Ucrania avanza. Las temperaturas abrasadoras impulsan una reflexión sobre el cambio climático. La inseguridad económica abunda. Pero las elecciones españolas podrían resolverse en torno al asunto de las malas compañías.Mientras los españoles se preparan para votar en las elecciones generales del domingo, los expertos opinan que a los votantes se les pide decidir quién —el gobierno de centroizquierda o la oposición de centroderecha— tiene los amigos más desagradables y los menos aceptables y peligrosamente extremistas.Las encuestas sugieren que el presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, el líder socialista, será reemplazado por los conservadores, que han aprovechado su dependencia a algunos aliados que han intentado separarse de España. Entre ellos, el movimiento independentista catalán del norte de España y los descendientes políticos del grupo vasco separatista ETA, que enfureció a los votantes antes de las elecciones autonómicas y municipales de mayo cuando presentaron a 44 terroristas convictos como candidatos, entre ellos siete que fueron hallados culpables de asesinato.Los socialistas de Sánchez, por su parte, han expresado inquietud por los aliados extremistas de sus oponentes conservadores, el partido Vox. Vox podría ser el primer partido de extrema derecha en llegar al gobierno desde la dictadura de Franco si es que, como se espera, el principal partido conservador gana y necesita formar una coalición.Pedro Sánchez en un mitin en Madrid.Juan Medina/ReutersEsta atención minuciosa a las alianzas políticas ha ensombrecido un debate sobre temas clave en España, como la vivienda, la economía y el empleo, así como el historial actual del presidente del gobierno, que incluye haber obtenido de la Unión Europea un tope al precio del gas destinado a la producción de electricidad.Estas elecciones, explicó Pablo Simón, politólogo de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, se centran en los socios. “Los socios de la derecha y los socios de la izquierda”.Ni el conservador Partido Popular (PP) ni el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) de Sánchez han aumentado o descendido de manera radical en sus respectivos apoyos desde las últimas elecciones, en 2019, y ninguno de los dos partidos se espera que obtenga una mayoría absoluta en el Congreso de 350 escaños de España.Más bien, el PP y sus posibles socios nacionalistas de Vox han usado a los aliados del presidente para crear una imagen de lo que llaman el “sanchismo”, que definen como el impulso egoísta, arrogante y sin escrúpulos del presidente para romper cualquier promesa y establecer cualquier tipo de alianza para quedarse en el poder.El principal reclamo es por su alianza con los catalanes independentistas. Durante las últimas elecciones generales de España, Sánchez prometió detener a los principales separatistas catalanes. Pero poco después, cuando la supervivencia de su gobierno dependía de ese apoyo, empezó a negociar para indultarlos.“Se sentó en la mesa con nosotros por la presión política y la necesidad de gobernar el país”, dijo Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso por Esquerra Republicana, un partido a favor de la independencia de Cataluña.Los conservadores también recuerdan a menudo que Sánchez alguna vez dijo que no podría conciliar el sueño si el partido de extrema izquierda Podemos entrara a su gobierno. Pero, como Sánchez necesitaba al partido, lo integró.Desde entonces, Podemos ha colapsado y, a decir de los expertos, sus errores y extralimitaciones han sumado votantes moderados e indecisos a las filas conservadoras. Sánchez espera que un nuevo grupo de izquierda, Sumar, logre compensar esas pérdidas y lo lleve hasta un umbral en donde, otra vez, pueda recurrir a sus aliados separatistas para que lo apoyen en el Congreso.Un mitin de Sumar en Barcelona. Sánchez espera que el nuevo grupo que reúne a distintos partidos de izquierda pueda mejorar sus posibilidades.Maria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEn una entrevista con la Radio Nacional de España el domingo, Sánchez dijo que, de ser necesario, buscaría apoyo de ambos partidos independentistas una vez más.“Por supuesto”, dijo Sánchez, “para sacar adelante una reforma laboral busco votos hasta debajo de las piedras. Lo que nunca voy a hacer es lo que han hecho el PP y Vox, que es recortar derechos y libertades, negando la violencia machista. Para avanzar, yo pacto con quien haga falta”.Los seguidores de Sánchez afirman que las negociaciones y los indultos han reducido en gran medida las tensiones con el separatismo catalán, pero los votantes conservadores dicen que la cuasiseparación igual deja un mal sabor de boca.Lo que es más, aseguran que les disgusta la dependencia de Sánchez a los votos de EH Bildu, descendientes del ala política de ETA, que dejó un saldo de más de 850 personas muertas cuando, también, buscaba formar un país independiente de España.El grupo terrorista vasco se desintegró hace más de una década y la justicia española ha determinado que Bildu es un grupo político legítimo y democrático. Pero para muchos españoles sigue en la sombra del legado sangriento del pasado y su presencia resulta inquietante para la unidad futura del país.Incluso los aliados clave de Sánchez admitieron que la derecha se benefició al dictar los términos de las elecciones como un referéndum sobre Bildu.La campaña entera se basa en esto, comentó Ernest Urtasun, miembro del Parlamento Europeo y portavoz de la plataforma de izquierda Sumar. “Moviliza a gran parte del electorado de la derecha y desmoviliza al electorado de la izquierda”.Pero, indicó, la contienda aún era fluida en los últimos días y aseguró que los sondeos internos mostraban que iban avanzando. Entre más lograra la izquierda apegarse a los temas sociales y económicos, y no a sus aliados, dijo, tendrían mejores posibilidades.Si Sánchez llegara a requerir sus votos en el Congreso para gobernar, los líderes de los movimientos independentistas han dejado en claro que no darán su apoyo a cambio de nada.Habrá un “precio” adicional, que incluirá negociaciones para eventualmente llevar a cabo un referéndum por la independencia de Cataluña, dijo Rufián. Alegó que la derecha, y en especial Vox, siempre han tenido algún tema de discordia para distraer a los votantes de los problemas reales y que en esta ocasión ese tema eran los catalanes y los vascos.“A nosotros no nos podrán responsabilizar” por los puntos de la agenda de la derecha, dijo Rufián.Rufián dijo que Sánchez le había advertido que España no estaba preparada aún para perdonar a los secesionistas, y que su coalición sufriría daños políticos si se otorgaban los indultos. Pero, presionado, el presidente dio marcha atrás.“Es bueno para la democracia que no vaya gente a la cárcel por votar”, dijo de los indultos concedidos por Sánchez. Si eso se castiga políticamente, añadió, “yo acepto”.Pero los indultos y las alianzas han facilitado a los candidatos conservadores persuadir a los votantes españoles a juzgar a Sánchez por las alianzas que forja.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, ha calificado a Sánchez como la “gran esperanza electoral” para quienes andaban con pasamontañas, en una clara referencia a los terroristas de ETA. Los líderes de izquierda han observado que Feijóo parece haber tenido sus propias amistades cuestionables, al llamar otra vez la atención hacia fotografías en las que se le ve en un yate con un traficante convicto de cocaína.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, en Madrid. Es posible que Feijóo busque gobernar solo, pero quizás no sea capaz de lograrlo.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeijóo evitó el último debate televisado de campaña, diciendo que quería que también los separatistas estuvieran en el escenario. Los socialistas creen que simplemente es una estrategia de dispensación de favores políticos para evitar cuestionamientos por su cercanía con el narcotraficante y para distanciarse de su aliado nominal, Santiago Abascal, líder de Vox.Al final, Feijóo dijo que tenía problemas de espalda.Feijóo ha dejado en claro que preferiría gobernar solo, sin Abascal. Pero Abascal quiere participar y ha indicado que si Vox entrara al gobierno se opondría con fuerza a cualquier movimiento separatista.En un evento de campaña este mes, Abascal acusó a Sánchez de mentir y de pactar con “los enemigos de la democracia” y añadió, “para Pedro Sánchez proteger la democracia es que le voten violadores, golpistas, ladrones”.Ese tipo de discurso es parte del manual de Vox.Según Aurora Rodil Martínez, concejala por Vox de Elche, en donde Vox gobierna junto con el PP —un escenario que podría ser el que se viva a nivel nacional—, Sánchez tiene un ansia patológica de poder. Consideró que su personalidad está “enfocada en sí mismo” y opinó que por ello no tiene empacho en aliarse con la extrema izquierda, “los herederos de ETA”.Rodil Martínez dijo que los aliados de Sánchez en el movimiento independentista catalán desean separarse de España. Añadió que Sánchez se ha “arrodillado” antes sus aliados de Podemos y requerido del apoyo de Bildu, a quienes calificó de “terroristas” y culpables de “crímenes sangrientos”.Todo lo anterior, dijeron los expertos, constituía una distracción de los verdaderos desafíos del país.“Estamos discutiendo sobre los socios”, dijo Simón, el politólogo y añadió que eso era algo terrible porque no se discutían las políticas.Un afiche con el retrato de Santiago Abascal, líder de VoxMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesJason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otros sitios del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More