DISINFO: Elections in Spain don’t matter as EU and NATO are real bosses
SUMMARY
Defining a clear winner in the recent Spanish general election is not easy, although we believe we know who won with more rotundity than in previous years. The decision to sustain bipartisanship is not taken by militants of big or small parties, nor in the voting polls, but much higher. There is hardly a country in Western Europe more politically disciplined to the wishes of the EU and NATO leaders than Spain, where there are no Euro-sceptic parties, or opposition to NATO, at Congress, neither in the left nor in the right. Whoever obtains more votes in the Spanish election, Washington, London and Brussels can always breath with ease.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives against democracy and lost sovereignty.
Contrary to what this disinformation story implies, the outcome of the July 2023 general election in Spain was not due to decisions adopted by any elites, but the result of multiple organic elements, including the fragmentation of the parliament since 2015, the disappearance of the centrist party Ciudadanos and the transfer of its votes to the conservative Popular Party (PP), and the better-than-expected results of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and its allies.
As none of Spain's main parties with a parliamentary representation have expressed support for Russia’s Putin or its brutal invasion of Ukraine, and the two biggest formations (PP and PSOE) are both in favour of sending aid to Kyiv, this disinformation story aims to discredit Spain’s democratic system by falsely pretending the result of the voting doesn’t matter as real decisions are taken elsewhere.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the EU is a democratic dictatorship, that Spain’s Pedro Sánchez demanded a dictatorship in Europe, or that the European Union is a dictate of several countries to the others.