A Spanish law designed to provide reparations by offering citizenship to descendants of exiled nationals has ignited a fierce political debate, with conservative and far-right opposition leaders accusing the Socialist-led government of engineering a new voter base ahead of next year’s elections.
According to government figures, at least 544,722 people have been granted citizenship under the law, which was passed in 2022. Of those, 306,000 have signed up on the electoral roll. Roughly 650,000 additional applications are still waiting to be processed.
This week, right-wing politicians leveled accusations — without presenting any evidence — that the Socialists were meddling in applications from countries where residents were less likely to vote for them, and strategically placing new voters in competitive districts to gain a few additional parliamentary seats. The far-right party Vox went further on Tuesday, calling for a complete suspension of all mail-in ballots cast from outside Spain.
The accusations echo rhetoric used by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump, both of whom made claims about rigged elections ahead of major votes. The controversy comes at a difficult moment for Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who faces mounting pressure to call early elections before August 2027 amid a stalled parliament and corruption scandals involving people close to him.
Current polling indicates the conservative People’s Party, known as the PP, is on track to win the most votes in the next election but would need support from Vox to form a government.
PP leader Alberto Nuñez Feijoo made his position clear during a Monday radio appearance, saying: “Since the numbers don’t add up for [Sanchez] with the current voters, he’s going to see if manufacturing voters will.”
Spain’s government fired back, calling Feijoo’s remarks “profoundly irresponsible” and pointing out that the government has no authority over where newly naturalized citizens choose to register. The application window for citizenship under the law closed last October.
Officials also criticized opposition figures for blurring the lines between the citizenship law and a separate three-month amnesty program, which offers legal residency to undocumented migrants but does not grant citizenship or voting rights. Vox had claimed that program was also a secret effort to reshape the country’s electorate.
The law in question, known as the “Democratic Memory” law, expands on a 2007 measure that gave citizenship to the grandchildren of approximately half a million people who fled Spain during the 1936-39 civil war and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco that followed, as well as first-generation descendants of Spaniards living abroad.
In 2022, the Sanchez government broadened those rights to include the adult children of people who received citizenship under the 2007 law, descendants of individuals persecuted for their sexual orientation or beliefs, and women who lost their Spanish citizenship as a result of marrying foreign nationals during the Franco years.
Spain is not alone in this practice — Italy, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, and several other European nations also extend citizenship to descendants of their nationals living abroad, including grandchildren, regardless of the country’s political history.
Despite the political tension, overseas voter participation remains relatively low. Only 9% of Spain’s diaspora, which numbers around 2.3 million, cast ballots in the 2023 election. While votes from abroad have trended toward the Socialists in some regional contests this year, the party has suffered significant losses domestically.
