- DW News Photo.
VIVA – Tens of thousands staged an anti-government rally in Madrid on Saturday, January 21, 2023. They do this to urge the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, to resign. Authorities said about 31,000 people rallied on the day, while protest organizers estimated the several protesters to be much higher at 500,000.
Santiago Abascal of the right-wing Vox party was the only national political leader to participate in the protest, although several other politicians from the Popular Party and Ciudadanos also took part.
Abascal said he was compelled to join the protest because the current Spanish government is "the worst in history". He also called for a "massive and continuous mobilization until Pedro Sanchez steps down from government." During the protest, protesters shouted for PM Sanchez to resign and be jailed.
In a public statement, protest organizers said that Spanish democracy is in danger. They warned that the Spanish government is "making hidden agreements" with totalitarian populist figures, nationalists, separatists, and terrorists to quietly erode Spanish democracy.
Perdana Menteri Spanyol, Pedro Sanchez.
- AP Photo/Markus Schreiber.
They also protested the government's decisions against Catalonian separatists, such as pardoning separatist leaders and abolishing the crime of sedition, as well as transferring members of the Basque separatist group, ETA, to prisons closer to the Basque region.
Spain is currently ruled by a minority coalition government, which is seeking support from regional political groups in the Catalonia region and the autonomous Basque Country region to pass legislation.
Meanwhile, when speaking at a Socialist Party rally in Valladolid, Sanchez compared the protests in Madrid to those in Barcelona on Thursday by Catalonian separatists and called the two groups of protesters "nostalgic and exclusive".
"Between the protests in Barcelona and the protests in Madrid, you will find the vast majority of Spain people, who want a united, respectful, and diverse country," he said.
