Spanish PM begins election campaign overshadowed by housing protests

When 87-year-old Madrid pensioner Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her home two weeks ago, no one could have suspected Spain was headed for upheaval that would bring forward a general election scheduled for 2027.

The eviction of Abascal, who became the face of the country’s chronic housing crisis, catalysed nationwide protests that piled pressure on Sánchez’s left-wing coalition to present urgent decrees.

But after the minority government failed to pass its measures in parliament, Sánchez rolled the dice and called an election for November 29.

The socialist, in power since 2018, has acquired greater international prominence in recent years as his clashes with US President Donald Trump and Israel endeared him to disillusioned global progressives.

But he is a more divisive figure at home and trails in most polls to the main conservative Popular Party (PP).

Sánchez has chosen the symbolic location of Dos Hermanas, a commuter town outside the southern city of Seville and a historic Socialist stronghold, to kick off his electioneering.

He launched his 2023 election campaign from Dos Hermanas and went on to thwart the predictions by retaining office, even though the PP won more seats.

Dos Hermanas was also the scene of Sánchez’s political resurrection after he resigned as Socialist party leader in 2016, which followed two bruising general election defeats.

“Spain needs more social progress and fewer insults from the right,” Sánchez told left-leaning online newspaper elDiario.es in a taste of his campaign rhetoric, saying he wanted to stop evictions like Abascal’s.

Conservatives on the offensive

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo will also rally his followers on Saturday in Madrid, aiming to become prime minister at the second time of asking after failing to form a government in 2023.

Feijoo, who tops most polls, has focused his criticism on the government’s handling of a migration crisis in Ceuta, where he held an event on Wednesday promising to restore normality.

More than 70,000 migrants streamed into Spain’s north African territory from neighbouring Morocco in late July. Thousands have remained for months in largely chaotic conditions, sparking anger among locals.

The crisis “is the symptom of the decay, corruption and lies into which the nation has sunk”, Feijóo said in Ceuta, adding that Spain needed “wholesale change”.

Yet the polls suggest Feijóo is unlikely to achieve a majority, which could make far-right party Vox, parliament’s third-largest force, a kingmaker in hypothetical coalition talks.

Housing, long a top public concern, is likely to dominate both of Saturday’s rallies as hundreds of protesters camp in Madrid’s emblematic Puerta del Sol square and in other cities demanding more protection for tenants and affordable prices.

The main unions have called a general strike for November 11 — the first such stoppage in Spain since 2012 — to crank up the pressure on housing and wages before the vote.