President Marga Prohens is insisting that a crisis that has engulfed Vox will not affect her government, but this crisis has left her and the Partido Popular reliant on five Vox 'rebels' to pass legislation.
Arrangements after the parliamentary election last May have meant that the PP in any event depend on Vox for support. It may well be the case that the PP continue to be assured of necessary backing, but the situation has been complicated by the factionalism within Vox that has caused this latest crisis.
The roots of this were the 2024 budget and strings attached that Vox were demanding, but they go deeper than this and to division within Vox in the Balearics that was evident before the election and as to who exactly calls the shots - the local or the national organisation. There is more, as the crisis also concerns who is running the show in the Balearics, the five rebels having been accused by other regional representatives of wanting to control party finances.
To cut to the chase, two Vox members of parliament, one of whom is the president (speaker) of parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, have been expelled from the parliamentary group by five rebels. The national organisation supports Le Senne and the other deputy, Patricia de las Heras, the current president of the party.
The upshot of this is that Le Senne will have to be replaced, the good money being on the apparent leader of the rebels, Idoia Ribas, who is the chief parliamentary spokesperson. Le Senne and De las Heras will become unattached members of parliament, a situation reminiscent of what happened with Podemos when the speaker (Xelo Huertas) and another Podemos representative were kicked out of the party following a row over funding for a research laboratory run by a Podemos supporter.
However, the scale of this crisis is rather greater than that which affected Podemos, Vox having already expelled a parliamentary deputy for not following the party line. He, Xisco Cardona, remains in parliament, categorised as unattached.
Le Senne stated on Tuesday that he won't be giving up his position and will take the matter to court if necessary. The five rebels are meanwhile in the process of being expelled from the national party.
Prohens can only truly rely on the 25 PP representatives, five short of a majority.