Tens of thousands take to Madrid streets in anti-government protest

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Tens of thousands of people participated in an anti-government protest in Madrid on Saturday, calling for the resignation of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Government authorities said around 31,000 people participated, while organizers estimated a much higher turnout of 500,000 people.

Santiago Abascal of the far-right party Vox was the only national political leader to participate, although less prominent politicians from the Popular Party and Ciudadanos also attended.

Abascal said he joined the protesters because Spain has “the worst government in its history” and called for a “permanent and massive mobilization until the autocrat Pedro Sanchez is removed from power.”

While marching across central Madrid, protesters chanted for the resignation and imprisonment of Spain’s left-wing prime minister.

In the protest’s manifesto, organizers said Spain’s democracy is in danger. They warned that the Spanish government is “making hidden agreements with totalitarian populists, nationalists, separatists and terrorists” to secretly erode Spain’s democracy.

Some of their major complaints centered around the government’s concessions to Catalan separatists, such as pardoning leaders and eliminating the crime of sedition, as well as bringing ETA members to prisons closer to the Basque Country.

Spain is currently run by a minority coalition government, which has sought support from regional political groups in Catalonia and the Basque Country to pass legislation.

Meanwhile, speaking from a Socialist Party rally in Valladolid, Sanchez compared Saturday’s protest to one staged on Thursday in Barcelona by Catalan separatists, calling both groups “nostalgic and exclusionary.”

“Between the protest in Barcelona and the protest in Madrid, you’ll find the vast majority of Spaniards, who want a united, respectful and diverse country,” he said, pointing out that under his leadership, the Catalan political crisis has faded.