Spain’s Sánchez calls November election after housing measures fail

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called an early general election for Nov. 29 after Parliament rejected emergency housing measures, turning a dispute over evictions and affordability into a national vote.

“We need to renew people’s support,” Sánchez said Monday in a televised address. “We need to mobilise and win a much larger progressive majority in Parliament, one that will allow us to overcome vested interests, deliver new social advances and continue transforming Spain.”

The election had otherwise been due next year, according to NPR. Right-wing opposition parties joined forces last week to defeat two government decrees that included measures to reduce evictions and real estate speculation. Sánchez has led a minority coalition with the left-wing Sumar party since 2023 and depends on smaller parties to pass legislation.

The defeat followed weeks of protests over housing costs. Public anger intensified after the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid last month. The government said more than 70,000 people attended a housing protest in the capital on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported.

Housing has long been a major concern as supply falls short of demand, according to Al Jazeera. Citing property website Idealista, the outlet reported that average rents have almost doubled over the past decade and asking prices for homes have risen by about 90 percent.

Sánchez acknowledged dissatisfaction with his government and said he had made mistakes and fallen short of earlier campaign promises, Al Jazeera reported. “I also know that part of that social majority is dissatisfied today,” he said. In the address, he asked voters to decide the country’s direction: “The time has come, therefore, for the Spanish people to decide what future you want for yourselves and for your country.”

His main challenger, Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, welcomed the election. “At last, the Spanish people will decide,” he said, according to NPR. “This is about Spain beating Sánchez.” In a televised address quoted by Al Jazeera, Feijóo asked voters whether they wanted “four more years of what we’ve been living through” or to “give change a chance.”

Al Jazeera reported that opinion polls point to a Popular Party-led coalition supported by the far-right Vox party as the most likely outcome. NPR reported that the Popular Party already holds the most seats in Parliament and is likely to focus its campaign on corruption. Sánchez’s Socialist party faces legal cases, as do his wife and brother, who deny wrongdoing, according to NPR.

Sánchez, 54, has been prime minister since 2018. NPR reported that he has faced questions over the crossing of tens of thousands of people, mostly Moroccans, into Spain’s North African territory of Ceuta this summer, where a humanitarian crisis remained two months after the initial crossing.

The election could hinge on which issue dominates the campaign. Oriol Bartomeus, a political science professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, told NPR that the housing debate gives Sánchez an opportunity to frame the contest in “very classic left-versus-right terms.”

Parliament’s formal dissolution still requires Cabinet approval. Sánchez convened the Cabinet for later Monday, NPR reported.