![]() ![]() Mamadou Keinde Diassaka, 40, entered Spain without documents after crossing the Mediterranean in 2000. They also promote Spanish cultural phenomena like bullfighting and Flamenco. Those at the sharp end of Vox’s rhetoric are Almeria’s migrants. ![]() Vox began their initial campaign in El Ejido, yoking immigration paranoia and the political alienation of local residents to stir nationalist nostalgia in place of cohesive policy. Most live in slum-like settlements near neighbouring towns such as Nijar and the hills of El Ejido, working for minimal pay, without rights and often without documentation. And in comes this guy - Abascal - and says that about us?īy Mamadou Keinde Diassaka, migrant workerĪlmeria’s greenhouses export around 3.5 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables a year, generating an annual revenue of around $1.5bn.īut this “miracle model of agriculture” relies on an immigrant workforce of over 100,000. And we're getting up at 6am in the cold and going to work in the fields. That we are the ones who rape their women. Vox people say that migrants are criminals. But that’s not true, because 30 years ago there weren’t migrants here. “The media says that this region was raised up by migrants. “This is a way to betray your country,” he says. Maldonado claims immigration and EU agricultural export policies have heavily damaged El Ejido’s economy, citing deregulated produce imported from Senegal and other African countries. “Now, 90 percent of the people here are from Morocco.” “This is my neighbourhood,” he says listlessly. In nearby Las Norias, on the corner of Sudan Street, a young Spanish man sits in his car, engine off and dozing in the sun. The Moroccans and Sub-Saharan Africans who work the greenhouses remain mostly out of sight. Further down the street, two concrete columns are sprayed with “Vota Vox”. On the concrete level of a dry river, someone has painted a black swastika. Graffiti is daubed on low adobe-style housing. There are shabby factory buildings and half-empty streets dotted with Moroccan migrants and Spanish locals. “When I listen to, I feel that I can trust them,” he says thumbing a bracelet.Įl Ejido feels like a forgotten town at the country’s edge. Maldonado was a lifelong PP voter until 29 party members were indicted in a sprawling corruption scandal. There are four main parties running for office: The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) under current Spanish president Pedro Sanchez, the centre-right People’s Party (PP), Ciutadans and the left-wing Podemos.Īlthough Vox officials have not appeared in televised debates, the party dominates political discourse. Several Spanish people in El Ejido told Al Jazeera they blamed migration policy for economic weakness They’re tired of the many cases of corruption … they don’t care about poor workers like us.” “People in the south are tired of having two parties: PP and PSOE. “Here, in this region, we feel that we have been forgotten by the government. “It was really, really emotional for me,” he says. Speakers then began to blast the Marcha Real to the standing crowd. “I was about to sit down and someone said ‘wait, wait the anthem!’.” ![]() Even old people who couldn’t really walk carrying the Spanish flag. “When I went to the first meeting of Vox, there wasn’t even space to park the car,” he says.”People of all different ages. Another in lime green says “Espana Lo Primero” – Spain First. ![]() Two bracelets on his wrists spell out the party’s name in capital letters. Physically, he is muscular and has a blunt yet warm manner. Maldonado has joined Spain’s newest, most controversial party. It has also pledged to repeal Spain’s 2007 Law of Historical Memory, which states that Franco-era symbols must be removed from public view. It seeks to trade regional roots for seats in the Spanish parliament. Vox trades heavily on anti-immigration and anti-feminist rhetoric, right-wing populism, and a desire to “Make Spain Great Again” through the dissolution of its autonomous communities and a hard line approach towards Catalan separatists. It is also where the Spanish far-right party Vox emerged from obscurity to claim 30 percent of the local vote in the December 2018 regional elections. El Ejido, Spain – “I’ve never really been into politics,” says 43-year-old construction worker Francisco Maldonado, as he lights a cigarette in his apartment in Santa Maria Del Aguila, a town on the outskirts of El Ejido, a working-class suburb in the Spanish province of Almeria.Ī short stroll away, at the base of low rocky hills, a rolling expanse of plastic-roofed greenhouses dominates the landscape, glaring under the midday sun.Ĭovering 31,000 hectares and extending along the region’s 50-kilometre stretch of coastline, it is the single largest concentration of greenhouses in the world and one of Spain’s major economic hubs, exporting its crop of fruit and vegetables across Europe. ![]()
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