México’s conservative PAN party earlier this month took a giant step to the right, joining with Spain’s fascistic Vox party in the signing of a new transatlantic pact. La Jornada, the Mexican progressive daily, had this editorial reaction.

The Madrid Charter: The PAN Party Exposed

On September 2, 15 senators of the National Action Party (PAN) met with the leader of the Spanish ultra-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal. During the meeting, which took place in the offices of the PAN’s parliamentary caucus, the legislators signed the Madrid Charter, a document promoted by the fascist party to bring together political and social leaders in the fight against the advance of communism in the Iberosphere. According to the Charter, part of the region is held hostage by totalitarian regimes of communist inspiration, supported by drug trafficking and third countries.

More than half of PAN’s senators signed in support of a party that (among other things) advocates for the criminal prosecution of all political dissidents in matters of national identity; the suppression of the autonomous communities, the annulment of regional judicial in open violation of local sovereignties; the immediate expulsion of all undocumented immigrants, even if they are minors; religious intolerance and the protection of Europe’s Christian identity; the cancellation of the rights won by the LGBT community, and opposition to women’s rights (including decriminalization of abortion and acting to stop violence against women).

The signing of the Madrid Charter not only shows the retrograde, authoritarian, and submissive nature of a good part of the Mexican opposition, it also reveals the inability of the right-wing forces in the Spanish-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic to articulate ideological and political programs in keeping with pulse of contemporary society. By rallying to fight the non-existent danger of the advance of communism in what they hispanocentrically call the Iberosphere, Vox and the PAN show such an absolute disconnection from reality that they take a bipolar approach to the world that died three decades ago as the axis of their political activity.