Spanish social media star launches new far-right party / Photo: © AFP
Spanish social media star launches new far-right party
A young Spanish EU lawmaker with a huge social media following officially launched his anti-immigration party on Sunday in a further fragmentation and rightward shift in European politics.
Se Acabo La Fiesta ("The Party's Over"), led by 35-year-old Alvise Perez, shocked the political establishment by winning almost five percent of the vote and three seats at last year's European Parliament election as a fledgling faction.
On Sunday, Perez whipped up thousands of rapturous flag-waving supporters at a launch event in Madrid where he vowed to attack corruption, crime and traditional politics.
Perez vowed "the biggest deportation plan in Spain's recent history" targeted at immigrants who commit crimes and financed by freezing all foreign aid.
He lashed out at "a European Union that has betrayed its foundational principles" and serves "a globalist bureaucracy".
Saying the bloc harmed Spanish interests in favour of France and Germany, he promised a referendum on membership if the EU did not "respect" Spain.
Perez, who has more than one million followers on Instagram, also promised lavish tax cuts.
His social media content includes mockery of the European Parliament, tirades against corruption and a video of him travelling on a jet ski to plant a Spanish flag on an islet off Morocco.
Alvise's EU election success rode a wave of conservative gains across the bloc and in a country once considered immune to far-right surges after General Francisco Franco's fascist-backed 1939-1975 dictatorship.
But his insurgent popularity has since waned, with recent polling putting him close to one percent of the vote.
The Supreme Court has opened four cases against him, including for alleged illegal funding as well as harassment of the two EU lawmakers who were elected under his movement in 2024 and have since broken with him.
(V.Sørensen--DTZ)
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