Abascal, the mountaineer who throws into the void all the Sherpas who guided him in his ascent: Ortega Smith, Olona, ​​Espinosa…

Under the slogan “no one is essential” (except Abascal) fell Javier Ortega Smith, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, Rocío Monasterio, Macarena Olona, ​​​​Víctor Sánchez del Real, Juan García-Gallardo…

“According to Abascal’s wedding photo, there is no one left“, explains one of the cities to EL ESPAÑOL, “we were uncomfortable witnesses who had to be moved out of the way“.

Surrounded by an increasingly small core of trust, Abascal left behind the most notable figures of Vox, in an endless purge in which two ingredients mix.

On the one hand, the ideological drift (towards “neo-phalangist” positions, in the words of Juan Luis Steegmann). And on the other, an authoritarian way of understanding internal organization.

Some of those who were purged add a third factor: the “economic interests” of the “clique” who took control of the party. Let’s talk about that too.

The abandonment of liberal positions led to the departure from Portugal of the former deputy Juan Luis Steegmann and the economists Rubén Manso and Víctor González Coello (authors of the party’s most ambitious economic program).

The repositioning of Vox internationally, placing itself in the orbit of Viktor Orbán (considered Putin’s main ally within the EU), provoked other noisy departures.

Marine General Agustín Rosety left the party accusing Abascal of being the “Trump shoeshine boy“.

And Major General Antonio Budiño (who was a congressional candidate for Pontevedra) tore up his membership card after denouncing that Vox had become “a sect that does not admit criticism and does not practice internal democracy”, whose leaders are “deified autocrats and careerist fanatics“.

The case of Javier Ortega Smith is emblematic. The old green beret and the lawyer, who prosecuted the Supreme Court case for the 1-O referendum, was until recently Abascal’s most loyal squire.

He was dismissed this week from the National Executive due to a personal decision by Abascal, after attending the presentation of Atenea, the think tank founded by Iván Espinosa de los Monteros (former secretary general of Vox and one of the last to fall from grace).

Even if those who know him deny that this was the trigger for the latest purge.

“You may or may not agree with his ideas,” says a former member of the ranks, “but Ortega Smith is a very hard-working guy, with very firm values. If you like, from the more patriotic stream of the party. He believed strongly in the project. And his blood must have burned to see that now some people are in the party to make money.”

Another former Vox leader tells it this way: “Ortega Smith’s mission was to design a more centralist party management system. It was he who built the bunker, then the Ariza, Abascal, Garriga, Buxadé… and they ended up firing him“.

Former MP Juan Luis Steegmann admits to feeling “sad, worried and disappointed” by the drift of the party, which he left in 2024.

“I really appreciated and still appreciate Abascal,” Steegmann said in statements to EL ESPAÑOL, “I think that one day he will realize that he was wrong to do without all the people who helped him.”

“The party may change, perhaps it no longer needs certain profiles,” he admits, “but it’s good to have these people as advisors. Not doing so is ungrateful and unintelligent.“.

Steegmann left Vox in 2024, after being removed from the lists during the 23J elections. But their disagreements came from afar.

“I joined Vox because I believe that the most important value in politics is freedom, both freedom of personal action and freedom of the market and property,” he says.

For this reason, he sees with concern the current “Vox movement towards the blue of Mahón and neo-phalangism, with anti-capitalist tics”. And he cites as an example the new deputy spokesperson of Vox, Carlos Hernández Quero, whom he describes as “a podemita disguised as a Falangist“.

Other former party leaders, consulted by EL ESPAÑOL, prefer that their names not appear. Among other things, because The purge is usually followed by the lynching of the dissidentthanks to Vox’s well-oiled social media machine.

“Some parties buy a media outlet,” says one of the most notable figures from Vox’s recent past, “which happened to us the other way around, a media outlet made a hostile takeover bid for us and bought the party.”

He alludes to the growing influence of Julio Ariza (founder of the Intereconomía group) and his family on the current direction of Vox:

“The entire current communications team of the party, led by Juan Pflüger and national spokesperson José Antonio Fúster, is made up of former Ariza employees,” he explains.

The same source alludes to payments made by the Disenso foundation (whose president for life is Santiago Abascal) to companies linked to the Ariza family (from which it bought The Gazettecurrent communications organ of Vox) and to the consultant of the journalist Quico Méndez-Monasterio, current judicial advisor of the party.

Companies that charge Vox (or Disenso) for concepts such as consulting services, organizing events or printing publications.

Alongside this influential group, the current core of Vox’s leadership comes from the ranks of the PP: Santiago Abascal, Ignacio Garriga and Jorge Buxadé, with an increasing role of other personalities like Lourdes Méndez-Monasterio or Nerea Alzola.

“Are Peperos playing Falangistspeople defeated in the internal wars of the PP, who grew up stabbing other colleagues in the back”, says the former leader of the aforementioned party graphically.

The recent regional elections in Extremadura highlighted two other facts. On the one hand, the low weight of barons of the party, transformed into a simple transmission belt for the national leadership.

Many did not know the name of Vox’s candidate, Óscar Fernández Calle, until, on the very night of the election, he rejoiced that his party had managed to more than double its representation.

Hence the paradox: Vox continues to grow at the polls, even if it bleeds out in internal struggles.

A prominent political figure who participated in the initial core of Vox explains it this way: “Over the past 20 years, the model of political correctness, which some call woke up: gender ideology, moral relativism, historical revisionism, open door policy on irregular immigration…”

And these values, he adds, cut across both the left and the center-right.

However, there is now a reaction among the middle and working classes who “see that they squatter home and they can do nothing, insecurity grows in the neighborhoods, corruption is unleashed and national unity is threatened by Sánchez’s pacts.

As a result of all this, adds the same leader, “the center of gravity of opinion is clearly shifting. Vox is riding very well on this wave which will continue to be favored in the short term.”