9 THE SPANISH POST-FASCIST RIGHT The unique case of Vox 1 Javier Franzé and Guillermo Fernández-Vázquez 9.1 Introduction 2 Over the last few years, Spanish democracy has been marked by unprecedented events since the time of the Transition. Most notably, the inability to agree to form a government resulted in four general elections (December 2015 and June 2016, and again April and November 2019), which led to two long periods of political deadlock: January–October 2016, and March 2019–January 2020. In October 2016, and for the frst time, one of the two main parties, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), abstained allowing the other, the Partido Popular (PP), to govern. As a consequence, Pedro Sánchez—the presidential candidate of the PSOE—resigned from his seat on 29 October 2016 to avoid abstaining or voting against Rajoy’s investiture. In October 2017, the Catalan government held an illegal (brutally repressed by the national government) referendum on independence and, bolstered by the results, unilaterally proclaimed Catalonia an independent republic. The Generalitat de Catalunya, however, immediately suspended the proclamation in order to enter negotiations with the national gov- ernment. Backed by the National Senate, including the PSOE, Rajoy promoted the suspension of autonomy (October 2017–June 2018) by triggering constitu- tional Article 155. In June 2018, also for the frst time, a no-confdence motion succeeded in putting an end to Rajoy’s administration, and Pedro Sánchez was appointed as president despite the fact that he was not a deputy—another unprec- edented event, as mentioned, he had resigned from his seat. The no-confdence motion led to the shortest term of ofce since 1979 (June 2018–April 2019). In January 2020, the frst coalition government since the recovery of democracy (1978) came to power, formed by the PSOE and the Unidas Podemos (UP). These events constitute signs of disturbance in the order of the Transition, which, since its foundation in 1977–1978, was based on stability and predictability,