Spanish right champions Ceuta migrant crisis as its key topic in election campaign

A sense of abandonment in conservative Ceuta following the migrant crisis of July is giving fresh ammunition to right-wing parties ahead of Spain's general election on 29 November.

Mari Carmen Mata remains furious with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez over his response to the mass arrival of migrants in Ceuta, a crisis complicating the Socialist leader's bid for re-election next month. "We want nothing to do with him," the 58-year-old nursing assistant told AFP in the centre of the Spanish territory in north Africa.

More than two months after upwards of 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco on July 30 and 31, life in the city, home to around 80,000 people, remains far from normal. Most returned to Morocco in the following hours, but thousands have remained for weeks in often dire conditions.

Criticism in Ceuta - governed by the PP for more than 25 years - centres largely on the central government's migration policy and what many see as a lack of firmness towards Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the territory.

"We thought our government was going to do something in the short or medium term, but we've been here for two months and these people haven't been sent back," said Ruben Gonzalez, gesturing towards groups of migrants still wandering through the city.

"Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus - we're all on the same page. We feel abandoned here," added the 33-year-old civil servant. Gonzalez describes himself as a centrist voter but said he would vote for the right in the coming election. Sonsoles Jimenez, a 51-year-old businesswoman, agreed, saying "in any other country they wouldn't have allowed what is permitted here in Spain".

'Hybrid attack'

The unprecedented migrant surge dominated headlines in Spain for weeks, with the right accusing Sanchez - one of Europe's last remaining socialist leaders - of being soft on immigration.

PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo made Ceuta his first campaign stop, pledging to help restore "normality" to the territory.

The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, visited Ceuta a few days later on October 12, Spain's national day, alongside Jordan Bardella, leader of France's ascendant far-right National Rally party.

Sanchez has no plans, for now, to return to Ceuta, after a brief visit on July 31.

He did not accompany King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia on their historic visit to the city last week. "The government made a mistake by treating this crisis as a migration crisis. It wasn't just that: it was a hybrid attack," political scientist Cristina Monge told AFP.

She was echoing critics who accused Morocco of deliberately allowing or encouraging the migrant surge to challenge Spain's sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, its other north African territory. Both the Moroccan government and Sanchez rejected the allegations.

Housing issues

A September poll published by the El Pais daily found that 63 percent of Spaniards rated Sanchez's handling of the Ceuta surge negatively, including 50 percent who described it as "very bad". But the eviction of 87-year-old pensioner Maricarmen Abascal from her lifelong Madrid home has helped shift the political debate towards Spain's housing crisis instead.

The issue has sparked nationwide protests and could give Sanchez, in office since 2018, a boost ahead of the election. The PP and Vox are pushing to put "immigration, the crisis in Ceuta, Morocco and corruption" at the centre of the campaign, while left-wing parties are trying to shift attention towards housing, social rights and pensions, Monge said.

"Public debate is now focused on social issues," she said. "If the campaign continues along these lines, the question of Ceuta will eventually slip into second or even third place."