On 30 May 2008, Santiago Abascal carried a model ballot to the Basque parliament’s lectern and tore it in two. The paper listed questions for a popular consultation proposed by the government of Juan José Ibarretxe; Abascal’s gesture rejected the plan. The consultation concerned political negotiations and the possibility of a future exercise of self-determination, amid a dispute over whether Basque institutions could call such a vote without authorization from the Spanish state.
The Basque government’s proposal was enacted as Ley 9/2008, but Spain’s Constitutional Court later declared the authorizing law unconstitutional and void, preventing the consultation from taking place as scheduled. The consultation never went ahead; Abascal’s act at the lectern was a protest against the proposal.
The episode came near the end of a political career spent inside the Basque Country’s institutions. Abascal, born in Bilbao in 1975 and raised in Amurrio, joined the Popular Party at 18. He later studied sociology at the University of Deusto, graduating in 2003. His father, Santiago Abascal Escuza, was a longtime Alianza Popular and PP figure in Álava.
Abascal first held elected office in 1999, becoming a councillor in Llodio, Álava, where he served until 2007. He also sat in the Álava General Assemblies from 2003 to 2004. In November 2000, he became president of the Basque Country branch of the PP’s Nuevas Generaciones. He held the post until 2005.
That role brought him to San Sebastián on 24 October 2001, the eve of the anniversary of the Basque Statute. Abascal and Gipuzkoa PP leader Jon Urionabarrenechea threw a bottle into La Concha Bay containing a copy of the Estatuto de Gernika.
His family had faced intimidation in Amurrio, where his grandfather Manuel Abascal was mayor from 1963 to 1979. On 14 August 1999, after stones were thrown at the window of the family clothing shop, Abascal showed reporters the damage. In July 2000, unknown people entered the enclosure around the family’s rural property and spray-painted insults and pro-ETA slogans on the backs of his horses. His father and he appeared with the animals the next day. Reports also described Abascal receiving police protection because of threats connected to his political activity in the Basque Country.
Abascal’s time in the Basque parliament ran from 2004 to January 2009. He entered through a replacement seat after Carlos de Urquijo left to become the government’s delegate in the Basque Country. After losing out in the April 2005 election, he returned in October when PP member Encina Regalado gave up her seat. He represented Álava during the 30 May 2008 debate and took part in budget debates and scrutiny of the regional executive.
After the PP’s national congress in Valencia in 2008 and María San Gil’s resignation as the party’s regional leader, Abascal moved away from the Basque PP leadership. He left the party in late 2013. A separate report on a PP dispute in Algeciras covered a local party split. In September 2014, Abascal was elected president of VOX with 91% of members’ votes.
