🚨 Now: Sánchez Calls Snap General Election
We’re going to the polls on November 29.
Madrid | Monday, October 5
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🗳️ Sánchez pulls the trigger: Spain is going back to the polls
Well, here we go again. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has finally called a snap general election for November 29, bringing an early end (nine months, actually) to a legislature that had become a nightmare to govern.
Sánchez said in a brief live address, his government has “made mistakes,” but argued that if it wants to “do more,” it now needs to “renew and expand the support of the people.”
The trigger was Friday’s defeat of the government’s two housing decrees, followed by a weekend of demonstrations across Spain demanding action on the housing crisis.
Why call an election now? Besides the fact that we have a non-government in power? Well… Sánchez appears to be betting that the housing crisis has changed the political mood.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Spain this weekend, while the encampment that began in Puerta del Sol after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal continued to spread beyond Madrid. What started with one eviction has become a much broader movement over rents, evictions and housing affordability.
The left suddenly looks... alive? After months of terrible polling, political/corruption scandals and progressive voters feeling unmotivated, housing has put thousands of people back on the streets around an issue traditionally associated with the left (although people are angry at the left too over this).
That’s the gamble. Rather than spend months trying to keep an increasingly zombie Parliament alive, Sánchez is asking voters to decide what happens next while housing anger is still dominating the national conversation.
The PSOE is betting that the anger over housing can mobilize voters who had become disillusioned with the government and turn the election into a fight over who voters trust to solve the crisis.
No love for Sánchez though. Far from it. The Sol camp has criticized successive governments for allowing the housing crisis to get this bad, and activists have vowed to keep going, with the Tenants’ Union calling for a general strike.
If Spain voted today… Sánchez would lose. And pretty badly. (The parties to his left are in worse shape; they are expected to announce a broad coalition on Oct. 17). Most polls, including those from PSOE-friendly El PaĂs, put the center-right PP comfortably ahead.
Do the math and things get even uglier for Sánchez: PP and Vox would together have over 200 seats, comfortably above the 176 needed for an absolute majority.
But there’s a caveat. These polls were conducted before Friday’s housing vote and before this weekend’s demonstrations (Our take? It’s not really changing much).
The PP is excited though. “Finally”, they tweeted right after the announcement.
Spain’s streets are full of people demanding change. The clock is ticking.
We’ll cover all of this in detail on our Thursday newsletter, but now at least you have the basics.
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