Spain’s PM Calls Snap Election After Rightwingers Block Housing Reforms

Spain’s socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez has called a high-stakes snap general election for 29 November, after rightwing parties blocked a package of housing reforms. 

Demonstrators in Madrid and other cities returned to the streets in their tens of thousands over the weekend after a package of measures approved by the minority coalition government failed to win enough votes in parliament on Friday. 

In a televised address announcing the election on Monday, Sanchez said: “We must mobilise and secure a much broader progressive majority in parliament, one that allows us to overcome the elites… and continue transforming Spain.”

The planned reforms included a ban on evictions for vulnerable people until the end of 2030, a ban on property funds buying homes until the end of 2028. They also included a rule forcing landlords to provide compensation to tenants, under certain conditions, when the landlord does not renew their contract.  

Sanchez’s government drew up the reforms in response to protests sparked by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her flat in central Madrid. 

Maricarmen Abascal was forced out of her home of 70 years after Urbagestión, the company that owns her building, increased her rent from €500 (£428) per month to to €2,650, before offering to lower it  to €1,650. 

Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, was allowed to return and pay €533 in rent after the protests began. But her story galvanised a mass movement drawing on anger over soaring rents. 

Sanchez’s decision to call an election is a gamble; his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party is trailing in the polls behind the rightwing People’s party (PP), which leads a powerful opposition coalition in parliament. 

If the polls prove to be correct, the election could allow the far-right Vox party, a PP ally, to enter government as a coalition partner. A far-right party has not held power in the central government in Spain since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. 

But Sanchez is considered a shrewd political operator who has beaten the odds before. Despite never winning an outright majority, he has been able to hold together a series of unlikely coalitions to remain in power for eight years.  

“You, the men and women of Spain, must decide whether you want to join the far-right wave that drives regression wherever it governs,” Sanchez said in his address, “or to ensure that Spain remains a bastion of openness, social justice, and environmental responsibility.”