Abascal: €94,000 in public pay and expulsions of Vox founders

Abascal earned €94,000 a year in public pay before founding Vox

In 2010, Esperanza Aguirre appointed Santiago Abascal to head the Data Protection Agency of the Madrid regional government. Between 2011 and 2013, that post paid him an annual salary of €93,855 between base pay and a productivity supplement. When the agency was shut down, he landed at the Fundación para el Mecenazgo y el Patrocinio Social, a foundation for philanthropy promotion, with €82,491.80 gross per year. The future scourge of public-sector sinecures had already been living off professional politics for years. Irony is not a crime, but it is no minor detail either.

From the Data Protection Agency to the philanthropy foundation

The figures documenting Abascal's public career come from reporting by Maldita.es and El País. The sequence is as trinc: first, the Madrid agency; then, the foundation. In this second stage, according to the documentation examined, the entity's accredited results during his tenure amounted to a €9,000 grant and a €1,000 donation. There is no crime here. There is a political contradiction that the party's own rhetoric makes hard to dodge.

The argument underpinning Vox's narrative since 2013 is the denunciation of the caste, the cronies and the bodies of questionable usefulness. The founder's prior résumé fits poorly into that framework. The man who today rails against professional politics has spent three decades living off it, and not exactly on minimum wage.

Espinosa de los Monteros: from founding project to expulsion

Iván Espinosa de los Monteros was with Vox from the start. He was the party's parliamentary spokesman and a key figure in the expansion that took the party to 52 seats. In August 2023 he gave up his seat citing personal reasons. He later explained that he disagreed with the leadership's shift and described an internal culture of mistreatment of people within the party. In March 2026 he published a critical manifesto. In July 2026 he was notified of his expulsion.

The leadership was entitled to disagree with his positions. That is part of any political organisation. The uncomfortable question is a different one: what room is left for dissent from those who helped build the party? Espinosa himself summed it up in a later podcast: the party I founded no longer exists.

Ortega Smith: godfather to one of his daughters, expelled in April 2026

Javier Ortega Smith's case has a more personal history. He and Abascal knew each other before electoral success, shared the DENAES project and built the party together. According to El Confidencial, Ortega Smith is godfather to one of Abascal's daughters. In February 2026 conflict erupted over his replacement as the party's spokesman on Madrid city council. Abascal's response was a phrase that defines his view of discipline: "The leadership is in charge". In April 2026, Vox confirmed his expulsion after rejecting his internal appeal, citing disciplinary issues and disobedience.

An isolated case could be explained by a personal disagreement. When so many names from the first stage vanish from the leadership, the individual explanation falls short.

The list of departures: Monasterio, Olona, García-Gallardo

Rocío Monasterio, Macarena Olona, Juan García-Gallardo and other prominent figures have also stepped aside or left the project, under different circumstances that should not be lumped together. Some denounced the political direction. Others clashed with the leadership. Others cited personal reasons. There is no single proven explanation for all these departures, but there is a visible transformation: the Vox of the early years and the Vox of 2026 have very different leaderships.

The €9.2 million from Hungarian bank MBH

In September 2024, Vox acknowledged having received loans of around €9.2 million from MBH, a Hungarian bank linked to Viktor Orbán's business circle. The party argued it had difficulty obtaining financing from Spanish banks. According to the 2025 accounts published in 2026, that debt had been settled. A foreign loan is not, in itself, illegal financing. But demanding transparency from a party that makes national sovereignty its great banner is the bare minimum. Who lends, on what terms, and what obligations does the party take on?

The Court of Audit sanctions that were later overturned

The Spanish Court of Audit (Tribunal de Cuentas) sanctioned Vox over certain financing practices. That part of the story is often told only in part: the sanctions were later overturned. It should be told with the full facts, because half-truths also misinform. In any case, the episode reinforces the need for transparency in the financing of all parties, not just the one that shouts loudest.

The Valencia governing record argument and the rebuttal

On governing, the party's defence rests on the Valencian Community. It cites the income tax cuts across all brackets, the 99% relief on inheritance tax, the repeal of the regional gender violence law and the passage of an Intrafamily Violence Law, national priority for residents in aid and protected housing, and the push for the Sagunto battery plant. The important caveat: Vox does not govern the Generalitat (the Valencian regional government). The PP has governed alone since July 2024, though it needs Vox's 13 seats to get its initiatives through. The parliamentary influence exists; the responsibility of governing does not.

The profile nobody disputes: zero days of contributions outside politics

The most repeated fact in any conversation about Abascal is also the hardest to refute: there is no record of him paying a single day of social security contributions outside the political or public structure. Son and grandson of politicians, his entire career has unfolded in party, institutional or foundation posts. The comparison with other leaders does not improve the picture: Pedro Sánchez has no contributions outside the PSOE either, and his doctoral thesis was mired in a plagiarism controversy. The difference is that Abascal built his political brand on denouncing precisely that.

With all this, the question is not whether the narrative holds up. It is how much longer it will keep selling without the buyer checking the label.