Carla Toscano has resigned from the Madrid City Council after being expelled from Vox. The party now holds just two seats in the capital, with internal disputes leaving its local influence diminished.
Carla Toscano, a longtime Vox councillor, has resigned from Madrid’s city council after her expulsion from the party. Her departure ends a seven-year run in local politics and highlights the depth of Vox’s internal divisions in the capital.
Toscano’s resignation follows her refusal to follow orders from Vox’s national leadership. The party’s attempt to enforce discipline led to the loss of three out of five councillors elected in 2023. Only Arantxa Cabello and Fernando Martínez Vidal now represent Vox in Madrid’s city government.
According to ABC, Toscano had already submitted her resignation as city councillor on September 1, 2025, but stayed on at the request of Ortega Smith.
The split began with a power struggle between Javier Ortega Smith and Vox’s national executive. When the leadership tried to remove Ortega Smith as spokesperson, Toscano and Ignacio Ansaldo sided with him, defying party instructions. All three were expelled and continued as unaffiliated councillors, attending council sessions without party backing.
In a statement on social media, Toscano said her decision was based on principle and health. She explained that the same values that brought her into politics now led her to leave, citing a growing gap between her beliefs and the party’s direction. Toscano criticized Vox’s shift toward rhetoric more focused on feminism and LGTBI issues, and away from its original positions.
Her resignation comes after a series of departures. Toscano left her seat in the national Congress in January 2024 and submitted her resignation as city councillor in September 2025, though she stayed at Ortega Smith’s request. The final break came after she refused to follow what she called an illegitimate order from party leadership, leading to her expulsion in July.
El Mundo notes that after the expulsion of Toscano, Ortega Smith, and Ignacio Ansaldo, only two Vox councillors—Arantxa Cabello and Fernando Martínez Vidal—remained in the Madrid city council, sharply reducing the party's representation.
Vox’s troubles in Madrid recall the collapse of Ciudadanos in 2023, when that party lost most of its councillors just before elections. Internal disputes and leadership struggles can quickly erode a party’s local base, leaving it exposed ahead of key votes. As reported earlier, Madrid’s political scene has seen similar upheaval before, with high-profile resignations reshaping city government.
With Toscano gone, Cristian Toro, Vox’s national sports spokesperson, is next in line for the council seat, though it is unclear if he will accept. Ortega Smith, now calling himself a "proscribed" Vox councillor, says the party has become a personal project for its current leaders, abandoning its founding mission.
This episode shows how party unity can break down when personal loyalty and ideology clash with central authority. Vox’s leadership tried to enforce discipline, but the result is a weaker presence in Madrid and public internal disputes. With elections in 2027 approaching, the party’s divisions are now out in the open.
