The ‘battle of the canvases’ sneaks into the electoral campaign of Spain

The last controversial canvas, with the slogan ‘You to Morocco, Desokupa to Moncloa’, was hung by an organization ultra dedicated to forced evictions.

The Spanish capital is witnessing a peculiar ‘war’ of propaganda banners in its most central streets, on the occasion of the next general elections to be held on July 23.

The latest to unleash the controversy has been a gigantic canvas placed by the Desokupa company, an organization ultra dedicated to forced evictions with aggressive methods that border on the law. The immense canvas had a message directed against the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez.

With the main motto ‘You to Morocco, Desokupa to Moncloa’, the canvas hangs from the facade of a building on Calle Atocha, one of the main thoroughfares in the center of Madrid. The president’s face, with a worried expression, faces that of Daniel Esteve, owner of the company.

Next to the image of Sanchez is the presidential plane and the Moroccan flag. The message also reads: “In eight years we have recovered the houses of 7,600 families or sentences. We will miss you all“.

Together with that last message, you can also see the faces of the ministers Irene Montero and Ione Belarra, from Podemos; the candidate of the purple formation in Madrid, Alejandra Jacinto; former Vice President Pablo Iglesias; the deputy of Podemos, Pablo Echenique; the spokesman for Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Gabriel Rufian; and the former socialist deputy Bernardo Curbelo, involved in a corruption case.

This gigantic banner comes after the Electoral Board ordered the removal of the canvas that the ultra-right party Vox hung on the corner of Calle Alcala and Goya. With the motto ‘Decide what matters’, the canvas was accompanied by an image of a hand throwing away symbols of independence, feminists and the LGTBI collectiveamong others.

Its appearance occurred in the middle of the month dedicated to the celebration of Pride, some very popular protest days in Madrid, and coincided with the withdrawal of LGTBI flags from Consistory in which the Popular Party and Vox have just entered, after the municipal elections of 28 of May.

The Madrid Zone Electoral Board gave a period of 24 hours for its withdrawal, alleging that it appealed “to the vote for the party without even being in the electoral campaign.” She was rated as the ‘canvas of hate’ by targeting different groups.

However, this has not been the first cloth hung by the far-right party. Last April, at the gates of the municipal and regional elections, they used the same method. So the reason for the canvas was a cartoon dedicated specifically to the European commitment to Agenda 2030.

The canvases of Podemos

Vox has not been the only political formation to use these huge banners. In the elections of May 28, Podemos also hung several in central streets of Madrid.

Perhaps the most controversial was a striking poster located on Calle Goya with the face of the brother of the president of the region, Isabel Diaz Ayusoalong with a phrase from the former president of the Popular Party, Pablo Casado: “The question is whether it is understandable that on April 1, when 700 people died in Spain, you can contract with your sister and receive 286,000 euros of profit for selling masks ” .

The phrase was spread by Casado in a tweet when it was learned that Tomas Diaz Ayuso had received Community contracts, chaired by her sister, in the midst of a pandemic. The declaration unleashed a war within her party, which ended with the dismissal and replacement of him by the current president of the PP, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, and with the reinforcement of the figure of Isabel Diaz Ayuso.

In the same campaign, Podemos hung another canvas to promote its candidate for mayor of Madrid, former professional athlete and European athletics champion Roberto Sotomayor, whose image in full race occupied most of the image, accompanied by the text: “The Cayetanos of this neighborhood have had a mayor with exclusive dedication these four years. On May 28 that will change running.”

The poster, placed in the middle of the golden mile of the Spanish capital, refers to the ‘cayetanos’, the name by which members of the wealthy social class, of conservative ideology and normally rentiers, are popularly known in a derogatory way, identified Also because of the way they dress.

The purple formation also placed an electoral canvas in the Sales neighborhood with the image of the billionaire businessman Florentino Perez slapping the mayor of Madrid, the popular Jose Luis Martinez Almeida. “Madrid deserves respect, not slaps”, was his motto.

fake canvas

The war of the giant canvases has even had a fake canvas. After the appearance of the canvas with the face of Isabel Diaz Ayuso’s brother, the Popular Party spread a photo in which it had changed the banner for one with a photo of the Madrid president and the phrase “We kick them out”.

Many citizens believed that it was a real canvas, but it was only a photographic montage.

Companies join the trend

The controversies caused by these aggressive political campaigns and their viralization have also inspired companies. The first to jump on the bandwagon was the PortAventura amusement park, located in the Catalan province of Tarragona.

“Pedro, this summer we are not going to forget it…”says the text of the banner that they hung next to the Mercado de San Miguel, also in Madrid, addressing the President of the Government for the call for general elections for the first time in midsummerwhen many citizens are on vacation.

His commercial technique consists of giving away a ticket to all the people who are selected by lottery to join the polling stations on July 23.

Another organization that has seen the potential of this tactic has been the NGO SEO Birdlife, dedicated to promoting conservation and publicizing the fight for animal rights and the environment.

“Let’s see which bird you vote for!”, says the play on words that stars in its poster. Although it does not ask for the vote for any political party, its content is electoral by asking for support for forces that respect nature.