Santiago Abascal begins to speak in a military tone: “Captain Jerónimo Jiménez and Civil Guard Germán Pérez, present!, present in our hearts, present in this square and present in the policies we are going to defend in Spain.” The two agents from Huelva who died this Friday in the line of duty were present, in body, but not in Linares (Jaén), rather at the other end of Andalusia, where their funeral mass had just been held. Vox has been the only major party in Andalusia that has not moved a comma in its electoral agenda and has not suspended any event after the two deaths in the line of duty, while the guards were chasing some drug traffickers in international waters off the Andalusian coast.
“It doesn’t matter whether there is mourning or not,” said Manuel Gavira, Abascal’s candidate in Andalusia, before supporters gathered in the Linares Town Hall square, focusing the rally on justifying why his party has not canceled events because his formation is “pointing out the culprits.” The drug traffickers, first of all, he specified this Saturday (on Friday he directly blamed the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister for the incident), but not only them: “Now we are going to point out those responsible for what has happened. Of course, the culprits are the murderers, of course, they are the drug traffickers, but there are many more culprits. Those who look the other way are also guilty; they are guilty too. Those who tie the hands of the Civil Guard are also guilty.”
The lawyer from Cádiz, a veteran Vox member and a novice candidate for the Junta, said that the drug trafficking problem could be solved in one fell swoop, in a few hours. “In one afternoon our Security Forces and Corps end all drug trafficking, but neither the PSOE government nor the PP are capable, they don’t want to.” Alternating again between a somber tone and a more angry one, he hammered home the idea: “In one afternoon, the Civil Guard ends all the drug trafficking crap! In one afternoon!” “We will not stop until justice is done, until the criminals are the ones who are afraid and until there are laws that protect the good. And we will not stop until they end up in prison and, if not in prison, at the bottom of the sea. Prison or the bottom of the sea!” he exclaimed.
“We have a lot of pain and a lot of rage, but we will not give up our duty,” he insisted on his refusal to suspend electoral events, as the PP and PSOE (completely) or Adelante Andalucía and Por Andalucía (partially) have done. Unlike what he did with the guards killed in Barbate in 2024, in that case run over by a drug boat, Gavira did not attend the funeral of the two guards who died in Huelva. About the tragic episode of the agents killed in his province, he said: “It is very hard to accompany the families. I was in Barbate and it is very sad to see the faces of those people.” Hard, he specified, because “in Spain we have a traitorous government that exposes them to risk their lives and, in Andalusia, we have a government that is not capable of saying what needs to be said: that it is a mafia government and that they must be ended as soon as possible.”
The candidate, whom only 4% of those surveyed by the Andalusian CIS want to see presiding over the Junta, showed indignation and even apologized for it. “I apologize for the indignation,” he snapped at the attendees in a contrite tone, while calling the official mourning declaration by the Junta a pretext to silence his party. “Today, under the excuse of mourning, they want us silent, they want us to say nothing, to suspend the campaign.” Because what should have been suspended was something else, “the policies of the corrupt and mafia government.” Raising his voice, he asked: “How many more agents have to die for the Government of Spain to stop being a cowardly government?”
After him, Abascal, who confessed to being “a little physically tired, but very comforting emotionally and patriotically,” in an Andalusian campaign in which he is very present, censured that it has been stopped. “We are not going to suspend our voice because we are going to represent Spaniards with mourning, without mourning, day, night, and every day of the year, at all times.”
In Linares, the Vox president drew on the usual rhetorical arsenal of his party. Unaccompanied minor migrants are actually used as “the spearhead of the invasion,” “the squatters are protected by the institutions,” “widows with miserable pensions, suffering waiting lists and enduring thefts in parks where there used to be peace,” and even “pardoned, amnestied, and released rapists,” “Sánchez’s mafia.” And even the blackout: “It happened to Pedro Sánchez because he is dedicated to uprooting olive trees, installing solar panels, and then that fails and the power goes out!” Some attendees then became cheerleaders: “Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch!”
But there were also words, although much softer, against the president of Andalusia and PP candidate, Juan Manuel Moreno, whose absolute majority is in the balance according to polls, benefiting Vox in that case. Moreno, Abascal believes, lacks courage: “Mr. Moreno has become an unwitting accomplice of Sánchez. Perhaps, due to his cheerful and friendly disposition, he struggles with the necessary fight in Spain at this moment. He struggles.” He blamed him for not opposing regularization nor the “migratory invasion” nor the Mercosur agreement. “He is becoming an accomplice of Sánchez,” he taunted.
The “national priority,” tweaked in some Andalusian rallies to “Andalusian priority,” was also heard in Linares, a city with high unemployment and economically punished for decades, first by the closure of lead mines and later, in 2011, by the closure of Santana Motor. The city was in demographic decline (it had 60,222 inhabitants in 1996, which by 2025 were already 55,633), although in the last three years its census has rebounded with the arrival of migrants. In 2022, 12.8% of Linares residents voted for Vox for the Andalusian Parliament, the same percentage as the province.
The Vox president has turned migrant regularization into “a process of massive and fraudulent naturalizations in which the most precious thing we Spaniards have is given away, which is our nationality.” And he said that in his party they are “tired of being sent — without specifying who — criminals, rapists, and sexual aggressors to give us terrible news that mainly affects women for a long time. To the jails of their country! And they should be thankful that we send them whole and not castrated!”
The PP “steals less from us”
Abascal reproached Moreno for not liking to make pacts with Vox, “[Moreno said:] ‘I run to govern alone.’ Well, so do we, of course. We don’t want to make pacts with the PP or anyone either. We want to win.” He hinted that he might even make a pact with the PSOE.
“Mr. Juanma Moreno has also been betraying change in Andalusia for eight years. Yes, it is true that he is more bearable than those who were before. They steal less from us; there are some cases in Almería, but well, these things happen and, if tackled in time, nothing to say,” referring, without specifying, to the mask case in Almería, which led to the arrest of the third vice president of the Almería Provincial Council, Óscar Liria, for the alleged receipt of bribes between 200,000 and 400,000 euros from a contract for medical supplies worth two million euros signed during the lockdown. Before, Abascal harshly criticized corruption cases of former high-ranking PSOE officials. “These scoundrels were trafficking masks and meeting in paradores with a bunch of prostitutes when Spaniards were not allowed to go out on the street.”
A woman from the audience asked him to talk about María Jesús Montero, the socialist candidate, “a bitch.” “This lady told me to see what I say about María Jesús Montero, to talk about her, that she is a bitch. Well, this lady said it, I heard it today and, hey, I neither take away nor add.” “Let me speak seriously, please,” he asked in response to that interruption from the audience.
