Congress of Deputies
Which position did Javier Ortega Smith hold from Jun 2019 to Dec 2020?
Javier Ortega Smith Francisco Javier Ortega Smith-Molina ( ; born 28 August 1968 ) is a Spanish-Argentine diplomat , lawyer and politician . Secretary General of Vox , the second most prominent position in the Spanish party after its president Santiago Abascal , he serves as a member of both the Congress of Deputies and the Madrid City Council since 2019 . Biography . Ortega Smith was born on 28 August 1968 in Madrid . His father , Víctor Manuel Ortega Fernández-Arias , is Spanish , and a lawyer by training . His mother , Ana María Smith-Molina Robbiati , is an Argentine , of English and Italian descent . She was born to a well-off Porteño family enriched through building trade . He holds dual Spanish and Argentine citizenship . Son and grandson of lawyers , he is cousin of Juan Chicharro Ortega , general in reserve duty and chief executive officer of the Francisco Franco National Foundation , whom Ortega Smith keeps a close relationship with . Despite his family living in the Arturo Soria area of Madrid ( in Ciudad Lineal ) , he studied at the San Agustín School at Padre Damián Street , Chamartín . He later took studies in Law in an educational centre in Toledo dependent of the Complutense University of Madrid , finishing his degree at the University of Alcalá . Collaborator in Así , theoretical bulletin of Falange Española de las JONS of Ciudad Lineal , in 1986 he signed in this journal the article «No olvidar» ( Do not forget ) , where Ortega Smith extolled the figure of José Antonio Primo de Rivera and glorified the interwar Falange party . He reportedly spent 9 months fulfilling the mandatory military conscription within the COE 13 , part of the Special Operations Groups ( GOE ) , located in the San Pedro Base , Colmenar Viejo . He was a keen practitioner of martial arts until a knee injury prevented him from continuing . He stood in the 1994 European Parliament election as candidate of the Foro-CDS coalition headed by science popularizer Eduard Punset . Settled in Chamberí , Ortega Smith started a professional career as lawyer . In 2012 he was hired as lawyer of Santiago Abascal during a trial at the Audiencia Nacional against some individuals who had allegedly verbally abused Abascal in the Basque Country years ago ; accompanied in the trial by Iván Espinosa de los Monteros , this trio , along the wife of the later , Rocío Monasterio , became close acquaintances . He worked in the judicial department of the DENAES Foundation ( for the Defence of the Spanish Nation ) , also serving as spokesman of the organisation . Founding member of Vox , he was included in 2013 as provisional Vice-President of the organisation in the procedure for the registration of the political party in the Ministry of the Interior required for its legalisation . He headed the Vox electoral list for the 2015 municipal election in Madrid . He also bid for a seat of senator representing Madrid in the 2015 and 2016 general elections , failing to become a member of the Upper House after receiving , respectively , and votes , well short of the and votes obtained by the last elected senator in each election . In June 2016 he took part in a propaganda stunt along with other Vox members in Gibraltar , spreading a Spanish flag in the British overseas territory . He fled swimming away from the Rock . Tasked with managing the judicial strategy of Vox , he played a role in the popular accusation exerted by Vox in the judicial proceedings at the High Court of Justice of Catalonia , the Audiencia Nacional and the Supreme Court against Catalan separatist leaders facing criminal charges , including the televised oral trial . After the 2018 Andalusian regional election , he was the national delegate of the party signing the accord with the Peoples Party for the composition of the Board of the Parliament of Andalusia that ultimately gained Vox a seat in it , thereby rapidly frustrating the attempt to establish a cordon sanitaire around the far right party by the rest of parliamentary forces . Ortega Smith , who ran second in the Vox list in Madrid for the Congress of Deputies vis-à-vis the 28 April 2019 general election , was elected member of the 13th term of the Congress of Deputies . He also ran first in the Vox list in the 26 May 2019 Madrid municipal election , and became municipal councillor . In October 2019 Ortega Smith accused Las Trece Rosas ( thirteen young female members of the Unified Socialist Youth executed by a Francoist firing squad shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War ) , of having been torturers , murderers and rapists providing no evidence of it . Not even the Francoist regime itself accused them of any such crimes , having sentenced them to death merely on the basis of the generic adhesion to the rebellion . On 10 March 2020 , during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic , Vox confirmed that Ortega Smith had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 . Ortega Smith , who had travelled to Lombardy in February , showed symptoms similar to those of the Coronavirus two days before during a party convention celebrated at Vistalegre attended by 9,000 party sympathizers , where he visibly hugged , shook hands and kissed plenty of people . On 7 March he had also reportedly greeted the 1,100 guests to a dinner in Jaén one by one . Stances . Ortega Smith is a staunch militarist . He argues that the History of Spain is inalienable and defines it as inextricably linked to the sword and the cross . According to Guillermo Fernández , the 2018 Vistalegre bullring speech by Ortega Smith—that started by praising the leading role of Spanish forces in the 1571 victory of the Battle of Lepanto over barbarism , the aim being to fuel a sense of the Nations historical destiny–was an attempt to connect with the discursive and ideological ideas of the Spanish extreme right . As guest at the demonstration of the policial association Jusapol in Barcelona on 29 September 2018 , his speech during the event included a diatribe against the European Union . He has defended José Antonio Primo de Rivera to be one of the great men in history . He has scorned ilegal immigrants as alleged carriers of serious infectious diseases .