Madrid (AFP)

The fear of a rise of the far-right Vox party dominated the last day of campaigning ahead of Sunday's elections in Spain and outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is trying to mobilize the left to stop it.

Taking advantage of the anger of some Spaniards against Catalan separatists after the unrest in October, this ultranationalist and anti-immigration training could double its number of seats and become the third largest political force in the country, according to polls.

Sign of his growing influence, Vox obtained support Thursday of the Popular Party (PP, right) and the liberals of Ciudadanos to pass in the parliament of the Madrid region a symbolic motion calling for the outright ban of all separatist parties .

Virtually unknown last year, Vox and his leader Santiago Abascal, who will close their campaign in the center of Madrid, made their entry into force in the Spanish Parliament in the last election of April 28 with 24 deputies, in a country where the extreme right was marginal since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975.

Polls now credit this party of about 50 seats out of 350. In April and during the European May, it had, however, done worse than expected.

Trying to mobilize the left as he had done in April, the head of government Pedro Sanchez, a favorite of the polls, called on Friday to "face the Francoism" and denounced the ties between Vox and the conservatives who sealed alliances at the polls. local level.

According to political scientist Miguel Requena Teruel, the fear of a rise of Vox is in all heads, left and right.

Sanchez "calls for the mobilization of the left, because it succeeded him on April 28" while the "PP begins to be afraid that the rise of Vox in the polls is very real".

More than 1,600 professors and researchers denounced Friday in a manifesto "falsification and manipulation of data and information" by Vox to serve his speech of "extreme nationalism".

- Paralysis -

According to analysts, this expected rise from the extreme right is largely due to the turmoil sparked by the violent clashes in Catalonia that followed the condemnation in mid-October of nine pro-independence leaders to heavy prison terms for the secession attempt. of 2017.

According to the polls, the PP should also take advantage of it to turn its head after its debacle in April (66 deputies), while Ciudadanos, who disoriented his constituents by constantly changing his position, could be the big loser of the poll.

Unable to ally himself with the radical left of Podemos to be re-elected after the April poll, resulting in the fourth election in four years, Mr Sanchez is once again winning in the polls. But he should not leave strengthened when he was improving his score of 123 deputies obtained in April.

As a result, the political instability that has been undermining the eurozone's fourth-largest economy since 2015 should not be resolved.

Neither the left bloc (socialists and radical left), nor the right-wing bloc (PP, Vox, Ciudadanos) seem to be able to articulate a majority and "the blockage should be on the agenda", according to Miguel Requena Teruel .

Hoping to convince the undecided, Mr. Sanchez and his conservative rival Pablo Casado have been calling for useful votes in recent hours.

"We are in a labyrinth and in this labyrinth, I believe the most important is to strengthen the first force that can solve" the blockage, insisted Mr. Sanchez, who closes his campaign in Barcelona in Catalonia.

A region, under high police protection, where the mysterious platform of independence "Democratic Tsunami" summoned Saturday a day of "civil disobedience" without revealing what form it will take.

© 2019 AFP