The first time Rocío Monasterio heard about Santiago Abascal was from her husband, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros. It was January 2012 and he was returning from a dinner where he had met a PP politician who was in Madrid because he had a trial the next morning. Abascal was summoned to the National Court in a case against more than a dozen supporters of the nationalist left who had boycotted and attacked him when he was going to take possession of his file as municipal councilor of Llodio (Alava).
“Rocío, tomorrow I’m going to cancel everything because I’m going to accompany you to the National Court,” Espinosa de los Monteros said to his partner that same evening, as the former leader of Vox Madrid recalled years later in an interview with the YouTuber. Jaume Vives. During this first meeting, the Basque politician explained that he would attend the trial without the support of the party. No one from the PP planned to accompany him to the National Court.
“When we said goodbye, he told me he would be with me on the day of the trial and he obeyed; “I will always be grateful for the gesture towards Iván Espinosa de los Monteros,” explained the president of Vox in his book. I don’t give up. The Basque politician’s legal defense was led by Javier Ortega Smith.
Denaes, the seed of Vox
A few days later, Abascal offered Espinosa de los Monteros a position as director of the Denaes Foundation, which he chaired. This organization, which sought to defend the Spanish nation, was behind the launch of Vox, while it was still led by Alejo Vidal-Quadras. At that time, Monasterio and her husband “had a lot of political concerns”, although, according to those who coincided with the marriage in the first years of the far-right party’s life, until that moment “they did not didn’t know how to channel them. .”
His involvement in this training, without media or parliamentary relevance, sowed confusion among those around him. “Rocío and Iván belong to a high social class. They embarked on a fringe party. In their surroundings, at Puerta de Hierro and at the pijerío, they looked at them very strangely, because Vox was a lost bet,” these same sources recall.
The support that Abascal and his entourage gave to Monasterio to lead the party in the region has been disappearing in recent years. “Rocío has suffered several attacks,” say sources close to the couple, who assure that the national leadership has boycotted its organic power on several occasions. The preparation of the lists, with names that did not have their approval, also generated tensions. One of the newcomers was the one who became his successor, José Antonio Fúster.
The leadership wanted Monasterio to remain in the Madrid Assembly, relegated only to the position of spokesperson for the parliamentary group. She did not accept it and, unlike Espinosa de los Monteros, who cited personal reasons, she harshly criticized Vox’s current drift. In a statement without asking questions, he assured that his replacement had been “handpicked” by the management and that, with this type of decisions, “internal party democracy” was “forgotten”. His abandonment of politics surprised the party leadership and he did not inform them of the announcement he was going to make.
Drops of departures since the 2023 elections
The sector linked to Monasterio and Espinosa de los Monteros defends that the historic leader has maintained an independent profile and with her own criteria, sometimes confronting the national leadership. And unlike Javier Ortega Smith, the last of the founders to remain in the party, beyond Abascal, she managed to retain a share of organic power.
The disengagement of the majority of the members of the promoter group began during the 2023 electoral cycle, with the departure of Espinosa de los Monteros, Víctor Sánchez del Real and former MEP Mazaly Aguilar. Added to them are other victims such as that of the economist Rubén Manso or that of doctor Juan Luis Steegmann.
“Even the mother who gave birth to him does not recognize this party,” they emphasize from the critical sector. According to these sources, the leader of Vox has withdrawn and isolated. They mention fewer and fewer people in this hard core of the party. Among the most influential are Julio Ariza, promoter of Intereconomía, and Kiko Méndez Monasterio, who became Abascal’s guru.
The dismissal of Monasterio and the arrival of Fúster as president of Vox Madrid are another example, according to these dissident voices, of the “takeover bid” that “the Intereconomía group” made to the party. The replacement for Spanish-Cuban politics came through this media conglomerate and also ran La Gaceta de la Iberosfera, a party foundation website that repeatedly spread hoaxes.
The Espinosa de los Monteros-Monsterio tandem brought to Vox “a patina of modernity” and “connection with the economic world,” says political science doctor and far-right expert Anna López, who recalls that the old door -parliamentary spokesperson of the party belongs to “one of the great economic families” of the country “since the Franco regime” and his wife has networks and contacts in the “Cuban lobby”, as well as in “the Hispanic world of the United States”. United.”
The father of the founder of Vox is the former high commissioner of Marca España Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros and Bernaldo de Quirós, IV Marquis of Valtierra, a title created at the beginning of the 20th century by Alfonso XIII. With training and professional experience in the United States, Monasterio’s husband began the training American tours to establish contacts with Republicans and the Trump administration.
Following the party’s electoral surge in 2019, Espinosa de los Monteros led the parliamentary group of 52 deputies. He was his spokesperson and managed to “be on the same level as his political adversaries,” says López, who considers that after his departure, his replacement, Pepa Millán, did not manage to overshadow to Abascal in his interventions.
The departure of the founder of the party after the electoral results of the 23J, in which Vox lost 19 deputies, highlighted the internal struggle that has been fought throughout the last year between two opposing sectors: the one led by Espinosa himself from the Monteros, with a group of like-minded people who called themselves the “liberal wing” and another group more phalangist and traditionalist, led by Jorge Buxadé.
Espinosa’s departure generated “insecurity” within the party
The sector loyal to Vox exportavox considers the entry into the parliamentary group of advisors close to Buxadé as a turning point in the political future of Espinosa de los Monteros. Its relations with the party’s national headquarters on Bambú Street also deteriorated. He began to be excluded from the core of power, the people he trusted were not repeated on the lists and after the 23D election results the question arose whether he would lead the government again. activity in Congress. Before the future that Abascal’s team had reserved for him within the group was known, he announced his departure.
From that moment on, Monasterio’s situation within the party began to become complicated. Those around her believe that the leaders are faced with “insecurity” which pushes her to stay. It is for this reason that she has since paid the consequences of being a “woman of”. Although Espinosa de los Monteros maintained a low political profile last year, his movements did not go unnoticed by Bambú. Sources close to the national leadership affirm that “he had fun” in recent months by meeting “the disgruntled of the party”.
With the departure of the leader of Vox in Madrid, the party loses the only woman who had her own profile, both media and political. Anna López affirms that this decision is part of the DNA of the party, “a sexist party”. And he adds: “When it comes to leadership, women are not useful to Vox, they are decoration.”
Twelve years after this dinner which created a relevant alliance for the far right of this country, the break (at least political) between Abascal and the Espinosa de los Monteros-Monasterio tandem materialized this Wednesday. The Basque politician did not inform his partner of the dismissal. His number two, Ignacio Garriga, did it. “I can only thank you and wish you good luck,” Abascal said simply a day later.
