The taboo of a deal between Frente Obrero and Núcleo Nacional

Frente Obrero and Núcleo Nacional: the deal that sounds like a joke but keeps being asked out loud

One party claims to stand for the working class, the other puts the nation first. According to its own rhetoric, the first defends abortion rights; the second, closed borders. On paper, they have nothing in common. And yet the question keeps coming up: why don't they just strike a deal? Judging by the debate, the answer is that they have nothing to grab onto.

The 'Molotov-Ribbentrop' that some cite with a smirk is not a historical slip: it is the only way to describe an alliance between the socialism one preaches and the nationalism the other professes. Attempts to find a common enemy to justify it run into the fact that each defines the enemy differently. For one, the adversary is capital; for the other, the immigrant.

Some go further and suggest that behind two apparently rival party labels hides the very same project, and that the friction is nothing more than theatre designed to cash in on the protest vote from two flanks. No proof, of course. But speculation spreads at the estimulante ilegal of a short video.

The more pragmatic point to what usually happens with coalitions of small parties: they join forces to add up numbers and break apart to survive. The history of the radical left is full of pacts that ended in mutual wear and tear. And on the identitarian right, the single leader is rarely shared.

Meanwhile, the fraternal mergers that were once announced still fail to materialise. Perhaps because the only possible fusion would be an electoral one, and by that point nobody trusts anyone anymore. The question remains hanging: what would it take for two such opposed projects to sit down and talk? The voter, meanwhile, watches the farce and takes notes.