Santiago Abascal founded Vox in 2014 and surrounded himself with a group of leaders loyal to the new project who helped him promote the far-right formation and implement it throughout Spain. Ten years later, of this first stage, there remains practically no vestige of those who formed this first “hard core”. The majority of those who accompanied him on his adventure were either purged by Abascal or ended up leaving the party.
The last to do so was Rocío Monasterio, the former spokesperson for Vox in the Madrid Assembly, whom Abascal decided a few weeks ago to dismiss with the stroke of a pen from her position as head of the formation in Madrid to replace it with José Antonio Fúster, which the leader began to assemble after having named him national spokesperson for the formation.
Unlike her husband – Iván Espinosa de los Monteros left his post as congressional spokesperson without a single criticism of his colleagues or Abascal himself – Monasterio slammed the door, blaming the leadership of his party the lack of internal democracy and the authoritarianism that has governed everything that has happened at Vox for a long time. To his departure we must add many other previous leaders who helped Abascal or founded Vox, such as Macarena Olona, former MEP Mazaly Aguilar, the doctor and former MP Juan Luis Steegmann or Pedro Fernández, who was Ortega Smith’s right-hand man in Madrid City Hall.
The latter is, precisely, one of the rare leaders who remains active and holds positions in the far-right party, and Abascal stripped him of the post of vice-president and before that of secretary general to relegate him to the rank as a simple member of the Executive at the last Extraordinary Assembly held last January. The strong rumors that existed at the time according to which the municipal spokesperson of Vox and deputy of Madrid was seeking to develop an alternative candidacy to that of Abascal with a group of critics were subsequently buried.
The maneuver was interpreted as an effective way for the leader of Vox to abort the alleged projects that Ortega Smith has always denied and from which Espinosa de los Monteros also distanced herself, whose brutal departure shook the foundations of the party. extreme right and exposed the internal struggle. . that for its control there was between two factions: the more ‘liberal’, embodied by Espinosa de los Monteros himself, and the ultra-conservative and ‘opusian’ led with an iron fist by the European deputy Jorge Buxadé , who despite himself also lost his stripes. in the new organizational chart continues to lead the Vox delegation in Brussels and pull the training strings.
When departing from Espinosa de los Monteros, Ortega Smith clearly positioned himself on the side of his “dear friend and companion Iván”. In a message on his X profile, he regretted his decision to resign, but “much more the reasons” which had caused it, without specifying which ones. Then he praised his dedication to the party: “You have fought tirelessly since the creation of Vox with loyalty, generosity and sacrifice. Even if some have not been able to admit it to you, the vast majority of us owe you an unpayable debt of patriotism. “We will continue to fight for the same principles and values for which we launched this project together in the service of Spain and freedom. Always by your side,” he said goodbye.
The party and Abascal himself have always tolerated that the spokesperson for Madrid City Hall is free, ignoring his criticism of management, which were not uncommon. For example, when he warned that “the party could not be a crony placement agency”. This desire to outsider led to him being relegated to a testimonial role within the training. So much so that during the last municipal elections, Abascal doubted whether to keep him as a candidate for Madrid City Hall, where his work had not been noticed either. Finally, she repeated herself, like Rocío Monasterio, as a candidate for the Community of Madrid. In the general ranking, Madrid also managed to stay on the list, which was leader, although it fell from second to fourth place.
His constant controversies as municipal spokesperson did not go unnoticed and were not always applauded by his people. Since his confrontation with the “manteros” who shouted in the Retiro park in Madrid, or with the squatters of a property in a municipality of Madrid – episodes that he himself was responsible for broadcasting on the networks through videos -, until he stood in front of the National Police a year ago, during the demonstrations encouraged by Vox against Pedro Sánchez’s amnesty law in Ferraz Street – headquarters of the PSOE -, to whom he reproached his actions. “You’re going to want to make arrests,” he reprimanded the riot police, who he advised to train “with the bag.” “Agents, I’m sorry, but today you won’t be able to strike, you’ll be hungry. “I’m leaving,” he then concluded.
The most famous, however, was the attack on the municipal councilor of Más Madrid, Eduardo Rubiño, who, during a municipal plenary session, threw a bottle of water at his papers. Then he blurted out “now cry,” according to what the left-wing councilor himself later said. All parties except Vox demanded that Ortega Smith hand over his municipal record due to his “inappropriate” and “violent” behavior. “It is a very sad day and it is an unacceptable attack,” said the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, who filed a complaint against Ortega Smith, saying that “he was no longer qualified to represent the people of Madrid as a whole. »
Although his party did not join in this disapproval, his person was not forcefully defended either. Vox, which had shortly previously called for the immediate resignation of socialist councilor Daniel Viondi after repeatedly touching the face of the mayor of the capital during another municipal plenary session – a resignation that the socialist took after two hours – , approved its continuity. But Abascal limited himself to reproaching the PP for “playing the role of victim of the left” without a word of support to his municipal spokesperson.
In this new legislature, Ortega Smith is trying to recover part of his lost notoriety within Vox. The recent judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) which forces the PP of Almeida to rectify The restrictions imposed on Madrid Central have given it wings and oxygen. The Madrid spokesperson took the opportunity to score the goal, because it was the result of a complaint from his municipal group. A few days ago, he crossed Madrid in a van with slogans against “the Madrid Central of ‘Carmeida’” – as he continues to call the mayor, mixing his name with that of Manuela Carmena – shouting “ Almeida, trilero, now come back the money.”
Despite everything, he could not avoid distancing himself from Abascal’s threats to break with the PP in all municipalities, in addition to destroying all the governments that they shared with those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in several autonomous communities.
In Congress he also appears more active, with furious interventions against the PP and the PSOE, many of them against the insecurity of citizens and against immigration. However, those who know the ins and outs of the party point out that Ortega Smith remains there because of his old friendship with Abascal, who does not dare to impeach him. In addition, they emphasize that the Madrid deputy and councilor no longer has influence in the national leadership as a member and is no longer in charge of the party’s legal affairs as in the past.
Ortega Smith is the spokesperson for Vox at the Justice Commission and some of his colleagues point to him, among others, as being responsible for Vox in supporting the amendment to the law which validates sentences served abroad for those who have pending sentences in Spain, some of which ETA prisoners will also benefit from. The PP and Vox then accused the government of “deception”, but they saw no problem until that moment and even defended the reform both in the Justice Commission and in the plenary session.
The abrupt departure of Rocío Monasterio as spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly left Ortega Smith as the last representative of the “historical Vox”, those who founded the party and who, little by little, abandoned the leader or seeing how it relegated them. in favor of other leaders who, like José Antonio Fúster, are loyal to the new leadership.
Ortega Smith has almost three years left in office, but few people would put their hand in the fire because one day he wouldn’t have enough and decided to follow in the footsteps of the other colleagues who founded Vox and were ignored by Abascal.
