If the Fiesta is over or has it just begun? In Spain, the “visceral, uninformed and biased anti-system vote of rejection” gained strength

In the seven days following June 9, the Sunday on which the results of the European elections were announced, Luis Pérez Fernández, a 34-year-old Seville native, was the most searched candidate on the Google search engine. Alvise, as he is known, leads a group called Se Acabó la Fiesta (The Party is Over), which obtained 796,560 votes (4.58%). This guarantees it three seats (out of 61 elected by Spain) in the European Parliament.

“It was a surprise that an eccentric party like Acabou-se a Festa obtained 800,000 votes and three MEPs,†Cesáreo RodrÃguez-Aguilera, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Barcelona, ​​admits to Expresso. “The polls gave him one or two seats, but he collected an anti-system vote of visceral rejection, totally uninformed and biased. In the European elections it seems to be possible to vote for anything, however picturesque and absurd it may be, as is the case.â€

Acabou-se a Festa (SALF) is not a political party: it is a group of citizens who joined together temporarily for the sole purpose of running for election, after collecting more than 15 thousand signatures. Alvise caused a major shock to the Spanish far-right party Vox, which won six seats in the elections (it had four in the outgoing legislature), but aspired to a more expressive result.