As we reported in our 22 September issue, the anti-lockdown message of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the head of Madrid’s regional government, had begun to resonate with Spaniards.
Her anti-lockdown message served her movement well – it won her a landslide victory in the Madrid regional election, which resulted in her Popular Party more than doubling its seat count, taking more seats than the three left-wing parties combined. (See our 11 May article, “FREEDOM WINS BIG IN SPAIN, SETS TREND.”)
The Financial Times reported that political observers in Europe have looked at Díaz Ayuso’s style and appeal and have taken note.
“She speaks very directly in an understandable way,” Tomi Huhtanen, the executive director of the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, the official think tank for the European People’s Party, told the paper. “It is resonating.
The paper pointed out that Díaz Ayuso, 42, the head of the Madrid Assembly, won enough seats during the election to lead without a coalition. As we had reported, her campaign slogan was one word: “FREEDOM.” This won her a resounding victory in the snap election against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist government.
The New European wrote that Díaz Ayuso “has young crowds chanting her name in the streets and the ruling Socialists on the run.”
Camino Mortera-Martinez, of the Center for European Reform, told the paper that Díaz Ayuso’s election was “fought in bars” and “completely destroyed party lines. It was borderline populist, if not populist altogether.”
The paper said her victory was seen as a major boost for Christian Democrat and center-right parties. The paper, citing a French think tank, reported that 39 percent of voters in European nations aligned themselves on the right, compared to 27 percent on the left and 20 percent in the middle.
Catherine de Vries, a political science professor at Bocconi University, said,
“Traditional parties are being challenged by political entrepreneurs that are able to mobilize on certain issues that do not sit neatly in the center-right template, such as immigration, European integration, anti-Islam, and saving Christianity. It’s very difficult for the center-right because these issues often split their traditional coalition.”
TREND FORECAST: What happened with Díaz Ayuso’s victory is based on “Freedom,” and what the political science professors are saying is old news to Trends Journal subscribers. We had forecast this trend when the COVID War began over a year ago.
The media and establishment universities’ systems of putting simplistic labels on the political parties “center-right” is totally wrong. Díaz Ayuso won a resounding victory by bringing in people who cross political spectrums, thus, it has nothing to do with a narrow “center-right” political ideology.
Indeed, it is the same as people in the U.S., whereby people who support President Biden are incorrectly called liberals… which, by definition, they are not:
- Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.
- Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.