Charlie Smith
PROTESTORS have taken to the streets of the Costa del Sol to voice their concerns over the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
The action has been dubbed ‘the protests of the 1%’ by various media, with those involved generally of older generations.
Footage has captured hundreds of demonstrators marching on Malaga’s iconic Calle Larios wrapped in the Spanish flag and banging pots and pans.
Protests against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s leftwing PSOE administration have intensified this week, with events also taking place in Cordoba and Marbella today.
Meanwhile in Madrid there were ‘right wing’ protests led by 54-year-old Vox supporter Maria Luisa and other protests in Barcelona.
The far right party has encouraged people to take to the streets and chant anti-government slogans like ‘get Sanchez out’.
The protests in Malaga this evening are claimed to have numbered 1,000 participants, although an official count has not been revealed.
Diario Sur journalist Matias Slb said: “At 8:40pm the demonstration against the Government of Pedro Sanchez is dissolved.
“There is no official attendance figure, but a thousand has been exceeded.
“The pressure on the street grows.
“Tomorrow another demonstration is called in Rincon de la Victoria.”
A spokesperson for Vox Malaga said: “How beautiful the afternoon is staying in Calle Larios.”
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However, those pounding the pavements have been warned not to ‘ignore’ Spain’s strict coronavirus lockdown rules.
A letter signed by Supreme Court Prosecutor Pedro Crespo said that public health should be maintained as an ‘essential public interest’.
But the top official’s intervention also reminded those demonstrating, of their ‘right to protest’.
He said that the ‘validity of the state of alarm and / or the invocation’ of the Royal Decree ‘does not in itself constitute an adequate and sufficient legal justification for the prohibition or proposal to modify a meeting or demonstration’.
It comes as far right Vox leader Santiago Abascal suggested protests this weekend could be held in cars in order to maintain social distancing.
This type of protest has already been seen in the US, where anti-Trump demonstrators have made their feelings known about the US President’s handling of the pandemic, all from behind the wheel of their vehicles.
A ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y Leon effectively also gave the protests the green light in ‘provincial capitals’ as Vox won its appeal against a move to ban demonstrations due to health fears.
It comes as the centre-right Ciudadanos party allowed Sanchez and his PSOE party to extend the country’s state of alarm until June 7.
