Temperatures appear to have reached flashpoint between the Ciudadanos (Cs) party president, Albert Rivera, and the leader of the far right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, just days after the two parties, along with the Popular Party (PP), reached a tripartite right-wing agreement on the the new Andalusian Parliament's presiding officials. The harsh criticisms that Rivera has received since entering into that pact meant that on Saturday he attempted to sound more equidistant in his rhetoric, and Abascal did not hesitate to insult him.
It all began when Rivera stated to the Efe news agency that his "priority" after Spain's municipal and autonomous community elections, due in spring, will be to form a government with "constitutionalist" parties. In that category, he included neither Vox nor the left-wing Podemos, thus managing to compare these two political forces from opposite sides of the political spectrum.
Abascal responded by insulting the Cs leader. "Your obsession with comparing us to Podemos shows you up. You are already tiresome Albert Rivera. You think you are Bismarck but you see a foreigner and you go down on your knees, petit Macron full of phony sophistication1. Be like that. I prefer to remain as a simple Spaniard, without any complexes."
Tu obsesión por compararnos con Podemos te retrata. Que ya aburres @Albert_Rivera. Te crees Bismarck pero ves un extranjero y te postras, "petit Macron" henchido de cosmopaletismo. Sigue así. Yo prefiero seguir siendo un español de pueblo, sin complejos.
— Santiago Abascal (@Santi_ABASCAL) 29 de desembre de 2018
Rivera has not responded to the Vox leader's attack.
Part of the immediate context of Albert Rivera's nervousness - and the source for the Vox leader's allusions - is that the agreement between the PP, Cs and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament threatens the Ciudadanos-backed candidacy of Manuel Valls in Barcelona, if Saturday's pact is extended to the Andalusian government. This question is due to be resolved in early January.
1 Translator's note: The term translated here as "phony sophistication" reads in the original Spanish as cosmopaletismo, a portmanteau made from combining the words cosmopolitismo (cosmopolitanism) and paleto (coarse or redneck).