Spanish PM calls early election amid housing protests

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called an early election for 29 November, in a bid to strengthen his mandate after a fragmented parliament rejected the government's key housing decrees last week amid widespread protests.

"We need to renew people's support," Mr Sanchez said 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 prime minister also acknowledged having made mistakes and falling short of campaign promises.

"I also know that part of that social majority is dissatisfied today," he said.

The defeat in parliament on Friday was another political setback for the Socialist prime minister, which renewed questions over whether his minority government could have survived until the next scheduled general election in 2027.

Mr Sanchez has stood out globally for taking a strong stance on progressive issues from Palestinian statehood to defending multilateral institutions and cracking down on "tech oligarchs", even as a series of setbacks and scandals weakened his position at home.

Facing the electorate now is a risky move as Sanchez's Socialist Party is trailing in opinion polls.

However, he has been boosted by proposals to tackle a mounting housing crisis that were well received but were struck down by right-wing MPs on Friday, leading to planned new public protests about housing.

An election defeat would spell the end of one of Europe's last few left-leaning governments at a time when the far-right is making unprecedented gains across the region as a growing swathe of European voters desert the centre ground.

Opinion polls suggest a coalition led by the conservative People's Party (PP) with the support of Vox is the most likely outcome in Spain, ushering a far-right party into central government for the first time since the return of democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

Still, Mr Sanchez, a wily political operator, has proven time and again his ability to surprise those who had long written him off.

Despite never winning enough votes to form a majority government, he has cobbled together a series of fragile and seemingly impossible coalitions including voices from the far-left to the separatist right to remain in power for three successive terms lasting eight years.

But growing fragmentation among his partners has meant the government has passed little in the way of legislation in its third term and failed to pass a budget since 2023, even as Spain's economy has continued to be one of the best performing in the developed world.

Thousands protest over housing

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities in Spain to demand affordable housing.

Mr Sanchez's government's proposed measures, which included automatic renewal of tenancy contracts and restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants, were voted down by opposition parties in Spain's parliament.

The defeat infuriated those protesting the country's increasingly expensive housing market and underscored the difficulties his minority coalition government faces in passing legislation.

Spain has been operating under its 2023 budget, the last national spending plan passed by Sanchez's government, for several years.

The demonstrations extended a crisis that has gone on for more than a week, triggered by the eviction last month of a pensioner, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, from her Madrid flat where she had lived for decades.

Hundreds of protesters have been occupying a tent city set up a week ago in the heart of Madrid to press for reforms.

Recent opinion polls have generally placed the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) ahead of the Socialists.

House prices soar

Housing has for years been a top concern for Spaniards as supply falls short of demand, with rents and house prices rising as elsewhere in the European Union.

Average rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade, while asking prices for homes have risen by about 90%, according to real estate website Idealista.

Ms Abascal's eviction catalysed long-running anger about runaway housing costs.

The pensioner was forced to leave the Madrid flat where she had lived for more than seven decades after it was acquired by an investment company that sought to increase her rent by 275%, say housing campaigners.

The backlash led the property's new owners to reach a deal allowing her to return to the flat at a low rent.

The housing bills Mr Sanchez's leftist coalition had presented to parliament were rejected after the Catalan separatist party Junts - on whose support the government relies - voted against them, arguing they lacked rigour.