Recent meetings between Spanish far-right leader Santiago Abascal and members of Mexico’s mainstream opposition have upended politics in Latin America’s second-largest country. Last week, Mr. Abascal, the leader of the nationalistic right-wing Vox party, co-signed an unusually strong-worded letter with members of Mexico’s second and third-largest political groups: the National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
“The communist advance is a serious threat to the prosperity and development of our nations, as well as for the rights and freedoms of our compatriots,” read the document, entitled the Carta de Madrid, or Madrid Letter.
Founded in 2013, Vox is a populist and nationalistic splinter of Spain’s traditional right-wing parties, similar in style to former U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. Indeed, Vox’s foray into Latin American politics echoes efforts made by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who sees Brazil as a key battleground for the global far-right.
The letter argued that part of the Spanish-speaking world has been “kidnapped by communist-inspired totalitarian regimes, backed by drug trafficking and foreign influences.” Said influences are not limited to the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, the statement added, but also to left-wing conferences such as the São Paulo Forum and Grupo de Puebla, which “seek to destabilize liberal democracies and the rule of law.”
Mentions of Grupo de Puebla and the São Paulo Forum directly imply that popular center-left icons in the region — such as Mexican President Andrés...
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