Spain’s Vox party is facing an increasingly visible internal confrontation, as prominent current and former figures accuse the leadership of centralising power and mishandling party finances at a moment when the party’s electoral prospects appear strong, according to Euractiv.
With a general election roughly a year away, opinion surveys have indicated that Vox could attract around 18% of the national vote, a level that might position it as a decisive partner for the conservative Popular Party in a potential coalition government.
However, the eruption of internal disputes into the public arena has cast uncertainty over whether the party can sustain its upward trajectory.
At the centre of the row are longstanding concerns about financial transparency. Questions surrounding Vox’s accounts have circulated since it entered national politics in 2019 with 52 seats in parliament.
The latest controversy followed a report by El País alleging that advisers close to party leader Santiago Abascal had invoiced approximately €1.3 million in a single year, partly drawn from public subsidies and channelled through the consultancy firm Tizona Comunicación.
Vox swiftly rejected what it described as “defamatory reports” concerning its professional links, particularly with Tizona, a communications consultancy led by Abascal’s advisers Kiko Méndez-Monasterio and Gabriel Ariza. Although neither man holds a formal party office, critics contend that both exercise considerable influence over strategic decisions.
In an official statement, the party said the firm had delivered “consulting services” in political communication after Vox first entered the institutional arena, securing 11 seats in the Andalusian regional parliament shortly before the 2019 national elections.
“Their responsibilities grew as the party began to expand rapidly,” the statement said, adding that all contracts had been reviewed by Spain’s auditing authorities.
Despite this defence, Vox has previously been fined by the Spanish Court of Auditors on three occasions, most recently in July last year, over alleged irregularities linked to third-party donations.
Calls for congress and claims of leadership cult
The dispute over finances has coincided with widening grievances about the concentration of authority around Abascal and a small inner circle. Earlier this month, Javier Ortega Smith, a co-founder of Vox, was expelled after refusing to relinquish his role as spokesperson for the Madrid branch, a post to which he had been reassigned following disagreements with the national leadership.
He accused the party hierarchy on X of “hijacking a political project intended to serve the Spanish people, turning it into their own cash cow”.
Ortega Smith joins a series of high-profile departures that include fellow founder Iván Espinosa de los Monteros. Speaking to El Confidencial, Espinosa de los Monteros argued: “We need to scrutinise every single euro of Vox’s spending at a closed-door conference.”
A group of former members has likewise called for clarity regarding what they described as a “large flow of money”, particularly funds channelled through the Disenso Foundation, presided over by Abascal, towards external consultancies and businesses associated with the Monasterio-Ariza circle.
Criticism has also been directed at the party’s ideological direction and its decision in 2024 to join the Patriots group in the European Parliament rather than remain within Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists group. Detractors argue that dissenting voices have gradually been marginalised.
In a manifesto circulated by former senior figures, signatories urged the convening of an extraordinary party congress to examine alleged irregularities and what they view as excessive centralisation.
“For years, we have witnessed a process of internal downsizing and erosion,” the document states.
It describes “concentrating decision-making in the hands of a select few, stifling debate, eliminating checks and balances, and sidelining those who maintained their own independent judgment,” and claims this has fostered a “climate of fear” within the organisation.
One supporter of the manifesto characterised the situation in stark terms, saying tensions had been building for years and alleging that “the party is turning into a Stalinist party”. Another signatory said critics of the leadership had faced “disparagement, insults, and threats”, while proposals for a congress had been denounced as disloyalty.
The party leadership has declined to comment on what it termed internal matters concerning individuals no longer affiliated with Vox.
