Alejandro Carlo

    

MP Alejandro Carlo
Carlo during a rally in 2018
Leader of the Spanish National Union
Incumbent
Assumed office December 3, 2017
Preceded by	Josep Dávila
Member of the Congress of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office January 10, 2017
Constituency	West Pamplona
Member of the Basque Parliament
In office October 4, 2006 – Octobter 7, 2010
Constituency	Alava
Personal details
Born	(1976-04-18) April 18, 1976 Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain
Political party	Spanish National Union (2014–present)
Other political affiliations	Democratic Union of Spain (2000–2014)
Spouse(s)	Lidia Carlo (m. 2018)
Education	University of Lisbon University of Deusto
Religion	Avignonese Catholic

Alejandro Abascal Carlo (born April 18, 1976) is a Spanish public speaker and politician serving as a member of the Congress of Deputies since 2017 for West Pamplona. A member of the Spanish National Union, Carlo has been the party's leader since 2017, elected over half a year after being elected to parliament, and was previously a member of the Democratic Union of Spain until he joined the Spanish National Union in 2014. From 2006 to 2010, he was a member of the regional parliament in the Basque Country, his native and ethnic homeland.

Carlo was born in Bilbao during the reign of the Spanish People's Republic. Due to his parents being members of the Avignonese Catholic Church, the family was in hiding for much of its history and Carlo would spend his childhood living in neighboring Portugal in the capital city of Lisbon. The family returned to Spain following the Spanish Revolution in 2000 and would return to the Basque Country and serve as a regiional MP until running for national politics in 2017 and would become the Spanish National Union's leader in the leadership race in December.

As head of the Spanish National Union, Alejandro has become one of the most prolific national conservative and right populist politicians in Spain and has emerged as a prominent figure within the Spanish and European New Right. Alejandro has been vocally critical of prime minister Gabriel Perez and of the Democratic Socialist Party, accusing both of seeking to reinstate Landonism in the country. He has also become controversial for his promotion of anti-feminist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2021, he lead the National Union to its greates legislative victory in years as the second largest conservative party in Spain.

Early life

Alejandro Abascal Carlo was born on April 18, 1976 in the city of Bilbao in the Basque Country. His mother served as a nurse in the city and his father was a Catholic pastor who originally was part of the Roman Catholic Church, but would convert to the Church in Avignon and organized covert and secret Avignonese Catholic mass ceremonies while masquarading them as Romanist mass and religious events. His parents were political dissidents in Spain, then the Spanish People's Republic, and opposed its Landonist government created after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. Alejandro would be raised as an Avignonese Catholic, but was taught how to act and appear as a Roman Catholic to live a normal life and avoid political and religious persecution by the state. Carlo himself grew up with few friends beyond many in the Avignon congregation his father organized, but the family fled the country in 1984 for neighboring Portugal after one of the members was arrested by Spanish authorities in the Ministry of Internal Security, the secret police force of Landonist Spain, and the Carlo family fled and escaped to Lisbon along with the remaining congregation members that could escape with the help of Portuguese volunteers with the Committee for Spanish Exiles.

Carlo would spend his childhood and early adulthood in Lisbon, Portugual where his parents would be active members of the Spanish Exile Committee. Carlo himself has stated that his upbringing influenced his political positions, especially the plight of Avignonese Catholics in Landonist Spain and the need to flee the country, as a motivating factor for his right-wing conservative political positions and his opposition towards Landonism as a whole. He would return to Spain in 1998 during a series of liberalization reforms and attended the University of Deusto after it was reopened with the permission of the national government.