Spain's Montero urges wiping out right-wing voters and adding migrant votes

Montero courts the migrant vote and stirs up a storm

Can a political party manufacture its own electorate? That is the question hanging over Irene Montero's latest rally in Zaragoza, in the middle of the campaign for Spain's Aragón regional elections on 8 February. There, the Podemos leader called for "sweeping away" right-wing voters and adding migrants so that half a million people can vote. The remark, reported by okdiario, has landed like a bombshell in a country where immigration is already the axis of every political debate.

The uproar is less about what was said than about what it implies. Some read into these words a long-term electoral engineering strategy: import voters, naturalise them and stay in power forever. Others see simple campaign demagoguery, a party in free fall chasing headlines to regain its lost relevance. Between the two readings lies a debate that strikes a raw nerve: demography as a political weapon.

What Montero said and where she said it

The setting is no accident. Zaragoza, a Podemos rally, the campaign for the Aragón elections on 8 February. Published polls put the PP candidate, Jorge Azcón, as the winner, with Vox on the rise. In that context, Montero did not talk about programmes or budgets: she talked about sweeping away. About adding migrants so that half a million can vote. About confrontation between "reds and migrants against fascists," according to the account of the event by the outlet that reported it.

The literal wording matters. Asking that voting be made easier for those who already reside legally is not the same as promising an operation to import voters. The leader mixed both things in a single sentence, and the result is a headline that reads like a declaration of war. In politics, sometimes the packaging is the message.

The replacement thesis and the imported vote

The underlying issue is whether the migrant vote constitutes a captive bloc. The short answer is no. The long answer is that the left has taken it as an axiom for years and may be getting it wrong. A voter who arrives, becomes a citizen and votes does not have to be grateful forever. Over time they develop their own loyalties, usually towards whoever gives them more or aligns with their identity. Thinking otherwise is a textbook mistake.

Some argue the operation is electorally profitable today and a burden tomorrow. The most optimistic calculation assumes that half a million new voters would tip the balance. The pessimistic scenario starts from the premise that this same bloc, within a decade, will vote for whoever promises lower taxes and more order. History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

The reaction: from irony to clinical diagnosis

The response has been a catalogue of outrages. From those who remind everyone that democracy means voters choosing the politicians and not the other way round, to those demanding that whoever proposes this expansion pay the healthcare bill for it. The most repeated criticism points to the contradiction: a party that claims to defend workers proposing an operation that, according to its critics, puts pressure on wages and public services.

Another current of opinion goes further and speaks of calculated provocation. The theory is simple: the higher the tone, the more the opposing voter is mobilised. If Montero generates a thousand far-right votes every time she opens her mouth, is she working for her cause or for her opponent's? The question has no easy answer, but the fact that Podemos is fighting Sumar for every last vote in each election suggests desperation rather than strategy.

The underlying problem: demography and the ballot box

Spain has an objective demographic problem: rock-bottom birth rates, rapid ageing, growing dependence on foreign labour to sustain pensions and services. That is not opinion, it is arithmetic. The discussion is not whether immigration is needed, but how much, under what conditions and with what quid pro quo. Turning that need into an exercise in electoral engineering is what has set off every alarm.

The real debate is not whether migrants should vote, but whether someone is designing immigration policy with the ballot box in mind rather than the economy. When a leader talks about adding voters before integrating people, the order of the factors changes the product. And that is exactly the reproach raining down on her from all sides.

What may happen now

Probably little. The Aragón elections on 8 February will be held with or without the controversy, and the polls will keep showing the PP as the winner. Podemos will continue its particular journey through the wilderness, looking for a space between Sumar and oblivion. The Zaragoza remark will remain what it is: a campaign gaffe that, however, portrays a way of understanding politics.

Because the heart of the matter is not Montero. It is whether representative democracy can survive the temptation of manufacturing its own electorate. The answer, for now, is that nobody has found a way to do it without it being noticed. And when it is noticed, the plan backfires. Such are the ironies of social engineering.